The pizza stone is essential to baking your favorite sumptuous homemade pizzas. A good pizza stone offers equal heat dispersion to cook evenly and crisp your crust’s bottom for perfect results.
If you use an outdoor grill or convection oven, you want to own a good baking stone to allow you to get the most for the best outcomes. However, it’s important to treat this essential tool right for a longer lifespan.
So, if you are wondering how to clean Ooni pizza stone or whether you’re doing it right, you’ve come to the right place.
What’s a Pizza Stone?
A pizza stone is a flat metal or ceramic disk designed to handle extreme temperatures up to 600 degrees F. They come in different sizes and shapes to offer the perfect baking surface for pizzas, bread, and other baked goods.
With its high thermal masses, this tool can help transform your kitchen oven into a 1000-degree F wood-fired oven for a tastier and crispier crust. Hence, they are made from materials like cordierite to ensure it handles those blazing temperatures.
What’s the Purpose of Baking with a Pizza Stone?
If you want that crispy crust, the pizza stone plays an integral part in the process. This tool offers even heat from all sides, like your cooking pan but much better. So, it’s easy to substitute a pizza stone with your ordinary pan.
However, you get better results – crunchy and crispy – with the pizza stone.
The essential is designed to draw heat from the source – oven or grill – and redirect it to the top surface of the stone. This way, it delivers even heat distribution to the bottom of your pizza for the desired result – crispy crust!
How to Use the Ooni Pizza Stone?
The Ooni pizza stone is best used with the Ooni 3 and Ooni Pro. However, this product works well on gas stoves. Out of the box, it’s recommended to preheat the stone in your oven at a high temperature for about 45 minutes.
Next, place the bakeware on your oven rack before adding your pizza to the stone and bake as you see fit. The Ooni stone also comes in handy for reheating your pizza. Place the leftover or cold pizza on the stone and preheat at a very high temperature for nearly 10 minutes to get the crust crispy again.
Why Should You Clean Your Ooni Pizza Stone?
It’s best to clean your baking stone immediately after use to ensure you don’t have to deal with baked-on next time you try to reheat or make a gourmet pizza.
Pizza stones have a porous surface that easily absorbs odors and liquids. Therefore, you want to get rid of these if you don’t want to ruin your next pizza. While a good pizza stone will make your baked goods turn out well, a dirty one spell trouble.
Another benefit of cleaning your Ooni pizza stone is to increase its lifespan – since removing the accumulated fats, oil, and other residues regularly help maintain its stick-resistant cooking surface. More importantly, it’s easier to clean immediately after you instead of soaking it in water for hours.
Trying to be lazy about it comes with some downside, from increasingly difficult cleanup to annoying sticky experiences.
How to Clean Ooni Pizza Stone?
With warm water and a stiff brush, you can clean your Ooni pizza stone. If needed, you can use a mild detergent or dish soap for a thorough cleaning. Whatever you do, ensure you rinse thoroughly once you’re done cleaning.
However, if you’re a dirty stone to deal with, it’s best to soak it in hot water overnight for effortless scrubbing.
After cleaning your Ooni pizza stone and you want to store it since you won’t be using it in a long time, it’s advisable to keep it in a safe spot on a sheet of aluminum foil or pan. Also, you should leave a thin layer of rice on top of the stone to absorb as much as possible from the surface for quick use.
Cleaning tools needed:
- Hot water
- Stiff brush
- Dish soap (optional)
- Aluminum foil
- Rice (for storage)
Is It Ideal to Season your Ooni Pizza Stone?
One of the most argued topics is whether your pizza stone should be seasoned or not. There are several tips and tricks on how to season a pizza stone, but that can be counterproductive. Most professional chefs will strongly advise you not to season your pizza stone.
While it’s really okay to season your cookware by adding a protective oil layer, pizza stones do not require this process. We understand that you want that non-stick surface for easy cleaning and effortless food release. Hence, most articles and blogs sell the idea to home cooks.
If you don’t believe this, check out Ooni’s official website. Most companies discourage or don’t recommend users apply a thin layer of oil on the stone. Besides, there’s no proof that this process would increase the performance or lifespan of the Ooni pizza stone.
With proper maintenance and use, your pizza won’t stick to the stone. This tool is heated up to 600 degrees F, which should leave your pizza crispy and not soggy and sticky. Plus, it’s easier to scrub off the baked-on and clean this essential tool when it’s hot.
How often should I clean my Ooni Pizza Stone?
You should clean your stone regularly if you’ve been cooking oily or cheese-based food at high temperatures to eliminate stubborn residue. Else, you should stick with an occasional cleaning.
Warp Up
By now, you should have figured out that maintaining your Ooni Pizza Stone isn’t as arduous as you thought with our simple, easy-to-follow guidelines. Plus, it’s a more effective way of maintaining a clean pizza stone for years without much effort involved.
To sum it all up, always clean up immediately after cooking messy or sticky food at high heat. Also, it’s not advisable to soak your pizza stone overnight, except the residue is stubborn and won’t go off no matter how much you scrub it.