Baking Sourdough on Steel

Baking Sourdough on Steel

If you’ve been baking sourdough for a while, you’ve probably gone down every rabbit hole there is for hydration tweaks, scoring patterns, whether you really need a proofing box. Still, there’s one thing that makes a bigger difference than you’d expect: baking on steel.

What Baking Steel Does

Baking steel stores and transfers heat fast. Like, way faster than a baking stone or sheet pan. When you drop your shaped dough onto a hot slab of steel, the bottom of your loaf gets an instant burst of heat and that’s what gives you that bold oven spring and deep caramel crust.

In professional bakeries, this effect comes from a deck oven with a thick steel floor. Baking steel is basically your way to replicate that at home. You’re giving your loaf the kind of heat it would get in a commercial oven.

Steel vs. Dutch Oven

Most home bakers start with a Dutch oven, and for good reason. It traps steam beautifully, helping that crust develop while keeping the loaf moist in the early stages. But once you’ve got your process down, baking on steel offers you flexibility.

With a Dutch oven, you’re limited to one loaf at a time (and usually a certain shape). Steel, on the other hand, gives you space to bake multiple loaves at once, or experiment with shapes that wouldn’t fit under a lid. You can create steam your own way (think: a preheated pan of water or a spritz bottle), then watch as your dough springs and caramelizes right in front of you.

What you end up with is a crust that’s thinner and crisper, with that signature blistered surface. The kind of bake that makes you feel like you’re running your own micro bakery.

Custom Steel for Countertop Ovens

Countertop ovens like the Breville Smart Oven and other compact models can turn out incredible sourdough if they’re paired with the right tool.

We make custom-cut steels sized precisely for those smaller ovens. What you get are faster preheats, reliable heat retention, and loaves that look (and taste) like they came out of a bakery deck oven. Even in a space that sits neatly on your countertop.

So whether your setup is a Breville, Anova, Ninja, or any other counter oven, you can still bake loaves with that crisp, glossy crust and open crumb without losing precious kitchen space.

(Photo from: @anotter_coffee, making loaves in a custom steel in a counter top Breville smart oven)

A Quick Guide for How to Bake on Steel:

• Preheat your steel for at least 45 minutes so it’s fully heat-saturated.

• Load your dough onto parchment or with a peel.

• Add steam right after loading to help the crust develop (a pan of boiling water works great).

• Bake as usual, but check your timing because steels bake hot and fast.

(Photo from: @anotter_coffee)

Baking on steel is another way to create bakery-quality sourdough at home, whether that home includes a full oven or a compact one that lives on your counter.

We design steels for every kind of baker. Great sourdough isn’t about the size of your oven; it’s about the heat beneath your loaf.