After having read most of serious eats' recommendations for better home oven pizzas, I still have a question regarding the surface to be used to achieve a better and crispier crust.
I am on a budget an hesitating between a pizza crispier such as:
Airbake-Nonstick-15-inch
or a pizza stone like this one:
Fox-Run-13-Inch-Pizza-Stone
Both are under $20 and I was wondering which is a better performer to achieve the crispiness in the pizza crust?
Best Answer
The pizza stone, used properly, will work far better. The heat stored in the stone will help brown and crisp the bottom crust.
The perforated pan just allows some better air circulation into the bottom, which has little effect. Its only true value is that it is fairly dark, and will therefore absorb the radiant heat of the oven better than a shiny pan would.
Recently, it has become apparent that the extremely high thermal capacity of a small steel slab, preheated and used as a cooking surface much akin to the pizza stone, actually performs the best, providing an effective blast of heat to the bottom crust. Sadly, these are currently being marketed at a much higher price point than the products you mention.
See also: The Pizza Lab: Baking Steel, Lodge Cast Iron Pizza