On Pizza and Entrepreneurship - How Andris Lagsdin Created the Baking Steel

Welcome to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host Chris spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. Their caterers research chefs personal chefs cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers, and all sorts of culinary renegades. I myself fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 11 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s I've literally never worked in a restaurant. This week I have baking steel founder Andris Lagsdin with his inspiring story of how he built his successful business. He spent a number of years working in restaurants, which included being on chef Todd English as management team. Tired of the restaurant industry, Andrus decided to go work at his family's steel manufacturing business. But it was an aha moment that led to the creation of what's now known as the baking steal. In addition to hearing his origin story, we also talk about pizza making and how to get the most out of your baking steal. One tips on successfully getting that pizza onto your steel. Ever wondered if you can put a glass dish on top of it. You'll get the answers to these questions and more on today's show. We talked about a few different topics which I cut out of our discussion to keep the episode on topic. But those clips are going to be released later, as many episodes like I've been doing these past couple of weeks. Not only will you hear Andrus talking about what he thinks a chef is, but we also had a great discussion about health and wellness. It's something if you've listened the show I've been talking to a lot of people about and I don't necessarily want this to become like the health and wellness show. But I think it's really important. It's only a 10 minute clip. But I did feel like it kind of took away a little bit from the conversation about his business and the pizza, even though who you are as a person contributes a lot to who you are as a businessman, I guess if that makes sense. So I'm going to be releasing that as a separate mini episode in the next coming days or weeks. And as I've said before, if you enjoy the show, I'd love for you to share it. And if you're inclined, you can rate and review the show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or directly on our pod page site. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoy the show. Have a fantastic weekend. Hey, Andrus, how's it going? Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Hey, thanks for having me today, Chris. Great to be here.

I love the baking steel. I think it's an amazing product. I'm sure many of our listeners have either used one or have one. So I kind of wanted to talk to you about the whole how that came about and your favorite ways to use it and just cooking in general.

Great like I can give you the long story. I was in the food industry in my early 20s I studied culinary arts and Restaurant Management. This love the vibes of restaurants, always been fascinated by it and food in particular, who doesn't love food. And so that was my career path. I thought I was going to be a restaurant owner one day that was my ambition and I did everything I could fulfill that work. You name it every position available to the restaurant world and from being not a chef but you know working on the line to running kitchens to running funhouse everything. My last final culinary adventure was with taught English at his figs restaurant initially. And if you're not familiar with Tom, but he's got this figs which is like a Roman style, just awesome, amazing pizzas. I got a job with Todd slinging pizzas originally fell in love with pizza and who he is and his creative genius with food. And he's super passionate about it. I just loved it and I ended up eventually on his management team a couple of years later. And so there I learned the intricacies of numbers Restaurant in the restaurant world. And I was like blown away by the tiny margins. And Scott scared because I was like I can I could open a restaurant up but I'm not taught English in the kitchen. So my capacity may not be 100%. But when you when you're taught in doing business plans, you can anticipate that

and he's one of the first restaurant tours that I like knew of I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm a Boston, like I grew up in Massachusetts like I'm from, I didn't know that. One of these people who I went to culinary school, I went to Johnson, Wales in 94. So if you think of like the Boston food scene around that, like he was one of those guys that I looked up to right, like not only because he had a couple restaurants and then just kind of watching this empire grow. So I just wanted to jump in because I don't think you and I have ever talked about this. I'm from Marlboro, so yeah, so you know. Yeah, my whole growing up was like going into Boston to eat out because you know, Marlboro didn't really have a food scene. So when I'd get your house, it was like, Where can we go? And yeah, so I really admired him from a very young age. I think his books were probably the first that I got, like when I was in culinary school, like the olives book and the figs book before chefs. Were putting out cookbooks.

Right? He was right. He was a trailblazer. And this is yeah, he was there was like a, maybe a small handful of chefs. And this is before chefs became like celebrity chefs. And so most same, so I was in my 20s. I'm sending Todd resumes because I had a culinary degree. And I restaurant, I had a ton of restaurant experience. I couldn't get a job with them just kept. I literally would send a resume probably every month. But I went away for a while out to California and came back. And it's funny. I come back, the very first job I get is actually teaching tennis. I was a tennis pro. And I got this job and down the cape and this really exclusive place. And I'm probably like, in my mid 20s. I think I'm cool. This older woman comes up to me like the first week I'm working there. She's like, Hey, you should meet my son in law. He has a restaurant in Boston, you should meet with him. I'm like, Sure, I'd be great. Let me know. And I'm like too cool for school. Don't pay attention. The entire summer goes by and there she is at towards the end. And she's like, Hey, Anders, do you want to meet my son in law? And I'm like, I'd love to put his name. She's like, it's taught English. Like you fucking kidding me. Right? Is that crazy? So all the resumes I had sent him not up not a call back. Next week. I'm literally in the kitchen with him making pizzas. Todd loves tennis. It was just a serendipitous. Right. And so it's it's one of those things like it's not what you know, it's almost who you know, right? Almost always. Yeah, almost always. So there I was. And I was literally hired on the spot. I want to say like making 12 bucks an hour making pizzas. And I didn't mind I thought this is great. I got my foot in the door. That's all I wanted to do show my stuff. And that's kind of what I did. And I work with Todd and, again, ultimately ended up on his management team. I saw some, some really areas where I could really improve inside and kind of bridge the gap between the creative and the administrative. And it was really I kind of created a position for myself. It was dynamite. I really loved it and got to really spend a lot of time

with them. So I'm guessing that's where you like found your love for pizza.

100% Yeah, 100 I love pizza. Who doesn't love pizza? However, I still envision like the missing pasta, putting that together before his pizzas, which are really unique and its own were beautiful.

So getting into the baking steal. So your family was in the steel business or Yeah. Are they still in the steel business? Yeah,

they still are. It's ironically. So when I left olives, I had some world experience now and I was I was kind of turned off by the restaurant world. Or I needed a break or a timeout and my dad's an entrepreneur. So what I did growing up, I followed my dad around, right, like who doesn't follow their dad around my dad, like as I call it, like a street engineer. He works with his hands and he worked with steel and make stuff. And he developed this really cool product called it's called a flip pad, which is like a stabilizer component for backhoes. Everyone's seen one but you haven't seen the marketing's terrible for it right? So I thought it's weld it's a fab shop welding, powder coating, you know, cutting steel just very old industry type of work and I never thought I would as an adult I would be back there but there I was having you know a coffee with my dad one morning said hey, what do you think of me coming back to work with you and I obviously I can bring a different level of expertise to help grow this my brother was there 30 other people and there I was back in the family business with restaurant world experience and real world experience trying to grow his team and his business.

And most people wouldn't think that those would go together. But you know, as as we get into the story, we will find out how those go together. Yeah. What was the spark for the baking steal? I mean, I I know because I know about you and how it came about. But I'd love for you to talk about, you know, your aha moment of where this started.

Yeah. So you know, I work with my dad for, I guess this version 2.0. Me work worked my dad for about 15 years, I really enjoyed trying to grow the business. It wasn't my passion, right? It wasn't what I love to do. Every day. I was married, I had a really nice pay, and they took care of me, well took care of them. Well, I had kids and my kids at the time, it changes your life. Everyone has a story about their kids. And I was older. And my son used to ask what I did every day. And I didn't want to say work because that didn't sound very appealing. And I was trying to show demonstrate that you can find something that you love, and I couldn't find the story. I just couldn't find it to share with him. So I really started to do some internal digging inside of myself. And I do a lot of reading a lot of yoga. I was trying to find that thing, that burning thing that makes me get up every morning and I just didn't have it and did a lot of journaling, etc. Listen to a lot of Tony Robbins. still do today. And wouldn't you know one night, Friday night at work? It's everyone left. I'm reading The Wall Street Journal just kind of hanging out by myself. And I read this article about this new cookbook. It's called the Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold throughout. The rest of that is history. It's amazing.

It's amazing. I have I have the books I once they had been out for a couple of years. I got my hands on a used copy. So it wasn't quite the $600 that I think it was going for at the time.

Yeah, it's nuts. I didn't by the way. I was I was reading the article. 600 bucks. I'm like, wow, fascinating, right. But what I really liked it because he turned like the food world upside down just started you guys asking questions of how things are done. And you know, scientifically, so it's a deep investigation into the food and the science, the physics of cooking. So anyways, a former foodie. I'm like, That's fascinating. And the Wall Street Journal starts to pepper questions to Nathan about cooking. And the third question was how to create a neapolitan style pizza at home. And again, I have all Todd's recipes. I have got up a pizza stone in my oven. I broke a few of my career at home. I just thought you needed woodfire to make it like legendary at home. I'm sure your listeners we all cook pizza at home sandy bottoms, right? Definitely. Yeah. So in any case, I read that. He said to use a piece of steel for a shelf. And it's like someone took a baseball bat over my head. I got goosebumps all over me. And I knew steel conducted energy really well. But I didn't know it stored it right. But it makes sense. Right? Get this big mass of metal, you get it hot. Once it gets hot, it stays hot. So I ran out to my plant. I grabbed a piece of steel that we used for Caterpillar components. And I brought it home. And my wife's like, what are you doing with that piece of steel? I said, I'm making pizza for us this weekend. And she basically looked at me and she said I am not eating it. My son is looking me like with big, bright eyes like wow, that's cool.

guys talking about tailgating and like cooking food on the hood of the car.

Exactly. That's right. That's basically what we're doing. And so I made dough that weekend, Todd's recipe, and I timed it just for fun. It was like seven minute bake. But for the first time I had a crispy Bata, I was literally like, Are you shitting me like that's like the Holy Grail in a home oven. And so I was super like, I can't begin to tell you how enthusiastic I was. This is 2011 2012. I went back to my office on Monday and told my my dad, my brother to sit down. I've got this new idea for a product. I told him when I was there, like Get back, get back to your office. You know, we're a steel company we provide Caterpillar, John Deere, you name it, those guys with our products, how in the world, we introduce a kitchen product,

right? Just like that shut down.

Just shut me down. And I you know what? I believe them. I'm like, What are you an idiot? We all have ideas. I'm like, You're right. I shelved it for a year, almost a year. But it was one of those ideas that just would not go away. And we've all have these, we all have ideas. The follow through is tough. I get it, right, maybe an idea or a day right. But the follow through is really tough in the execution. But any case I woke up and I actually just started taking massive action. And for me what that meant is making some prototypes, making samples for myself but also for friends. I had a million dollars worth of equipment that could produce these things. And guess what, that that feedback was the same feedback I got when I had was creating pizzas and the other. So now I'm like This is interesting. What do I do? Right? What do I do with this idea that I want to bring to life. And I started doing more reading, I read some Gary Vaynerchuk his first book, crush it. And there's an incredible book about and this is before Instagram before online sales were direct to consumer. They call it like DTC now was a thing. And I started kind of bleep creating a story around what I was trying to do. By the way, that's the baking steal. Credit my wife for that name, we want to do it more than just pizza. And so we came up with the name was super heavy. It was 15 to 20 pounds. Nothing like that in the kitchen. Where for home home goods, right for home, home cooks. Super heavy. So it was like, trailblazing Yeah, it's massive. I was horrified. I'm like, okay, cool. But in any case, I got the courage. I thought if I could sell 50 a month, boom, right? I've got a side hustle, my family business, happy as a clam, kind of doing what I love, while helping the family business grow. Bam. And that was my plan. So we went on Kickstarter, and this is 2012. Before Kickstarter really was a big thing. And

oh, yeah, that's really early. I mean, when did I mean, Kickstarter is probably started about that time,

probably a year or two before that. And all I knew on Kickstarter is the, I have some great guidances. If you, if you have a project, you plan your project and you hit your goal, you will be on Kickstarter forever. Right. And so knowing that I had a really reasonable, humble goal of $3,000. And I thought, if I could sell 50 units, boom, we got it. I'm like, happy, happy camper. But wouldn't you know, I guess the world was looking for a product like this, we hit $3,000 in a day. And that was my mother, my brother's my friends, right? Add some friends. But 3000 was beyond that. And it started to catch a little bit of headwind and viral for us is, you know, at the time, was mind blowing. So we ended up 30 days later, selling about 500 units, or pre selling and raising about 38 to 40 grand, or suddenly now, my family believes everyone's believing in this thing. The good news is we're manufacturers. So we understood that and we were able to make these fulfill them before our Kickstarter deadline, and which is a big deal. I'm still a backer of some projects I haven't received yet years later.

Me too, there has been a number of things that I have backed. And sometimes you just have to say, I believe in the person. And it was a great project. But there's been restaurants I've backed that have not opened, there have been products that I've backed, I backed cookbooks that never got published. And it's just like, yeah, it makes it hard, because I want to keep backing products and projects. But you know, it happens. And that's where I don't know anything about manufacturing. Like I have ideas. I have a notebook of ideas, I have some cool things that I would love to manufacture for the kitchen. But it's like, I like I don't have a background in that. I don't know anything. It seems like that's just something that I'll table because I have so many things that I know I can execute on and do well.

That's a good point. That's I think that's you know, this was my wheelhouse, by the way you think about pizza, you think about steel, like, I mean, boom, this thing this product was made for and I like fell in my lap because of my background. And it totally made sense. And, again, manufacturing was my wheelhouse. So I'm like, bring it in, let's go and we were able to fulfill and it's really, from that day on, it's become like a business out of the gates and obviously a lot of work to get there. Not a straight line by any means. But it's become it's a brand, almost right out right out of the gates. super grateful got some incredible write ups. It's an incredible support from people and

I assume that a lot of success comes from, you know, like serious eats loves, like when Kenji. You know the foods, right? Like when a guy like hen G does all these blog posts on the baking steel and how you can finally make amazing pizza at home. Like that kind of stuff has to give you a lot of traction.

Oh, can you Yeah, can we talk about that influencer marketing. So I was doing influencer marketing before it was even influencer marketing, Kenji. So forever. In Kinsey's debt for taking our product, he contacted me during the Kickstarter. So I didn't I knew Kenzi obviously, and the food world. And he reaches out to me and said, Hey, I see your Kickstarter. This is really intriguing. Can I can I test one out? Unlike horrified, like, yeah, of course. But in the back of my mind, I'm like, I'm gonna give this my my baby to Kenji. He's going to be like lukewarm about it. And I'm going to lose at the time, like $17,000 worth of Kickstarter backers. That's Rob that's going through my brain right. Are were fragile as entrepreneurs, but at the same token, I'm like, It's $17,000 of pre sales. Let's get this into the hands of Kenji. Because if he does like it, or it's comparable, even to a stone at that point I knew was better. But again, that's unbiased. Let's get it and see what he says. And so he had a couple of days, he emails me back. I read his email at about 1115 at night, and he said, this thing blows away my stone. I'm gonna do a full review for you guys. And tomorrow. I'm like, is it okay? If I do a little blurb? I'm like, You kidding me? Horse, of course, I don't think I slept the rest of that night. And if anybody anybody listening is a manufacturing. My family business was becoming an ISO 9001 accredited supplier to the massive like corporations like Caterpillar, it's like going through this audit that you just don't want, it's almost worse than going through the dentist for a cavity. I'm going through this audit. I've got my I don't even know what I had that at the time. For a smart I must have had up a rim ag or some kind of smartphone that was connecting me to what was going on with Kickstarter. It was blowing up. I wasn't listening to my meeting. We ended up two days later, going from 17 to 38,000. In backers almost doubled our campaign. So I got a taste of what influencer marketing is. And that was kanji. Mind blowing.

I mean, that's probably where I heard about your product. I mean, I can't think about who it was. But you know, in that food circle of, you know, like, guys like Kenji and ideas and food and Dave Arnold, like, you know, those are the people that I listen, they're always looking for the best way or a better way, or a different way to do things. I'm sure it was one of those channels. That was probably Kenji thing where I saw that and like this is, this is amazing, I got to get one of these things.

Kenji was just amazing about his write up in a science background and able to do his detailed articulating what, what was really happening, and it really supported the product. And then once we got to shipping these out to the individuals who who purchased them, you know, they're the same depth and the same exact results that I did. They're like, holy shit, my pizza is now crispy. And it doesn't take 10 to 12 minutes. And by the way, the second pizza is made just as quickly as the first pizza because anybody who uses a pizza stone know that what happens that heat reduces each time you open that up and up and put something on top, while the steel just continues to bounce back, pizza after pizza. So I can make you know multiple even today, I can make multiple pizzas, with one oven, two steals I can I can crank them out, I can't even work fast enough.

It's like anyone who's ever worked with a fryer like that recovery time, like the first batch of whatever is great. And then can't like drop another batch of fries right away. It's got to come back up to Tim,

you're better off waiting, right? If you want to be crispy, you got to wait that time that timeframe. So that's basically what what was going on. And then it became, you know, my marketing genius. This is before Instagram was like Adam Kuben would call me and these people would call me I'd be sending them steels out. Now I'm super fortunate, by the way because I'm still working for Stoughton steel company on their payroll, right, so I'm doing some r&d. But I've got this kind of corporation Small Business still but helping me. And super, I'm still super grateful for that right moment. So I had a little bit of help with that and thankful for obviously for the the equipment and the team. And fast forward a couple of years. I'm still making baby Steel's my family continues to make them for us. But I am now the customer, which is great.

Well, that's really cool. Yeah, I can't imagine starting it from scratch. Like, if you were just like, you've never been in steel, you don't have experience, like opening a steel plant to manufacture these that yeah, or even finding someone to custom do that and have to bring like a design to someone outside. I don't know that it would have gotten off the ground.

It would be tough. It'd be one of those ideas that were just kind of sit there, right? Because the execution part is is difficult, because what do you do, right? And then there's a matter of, you know, trying to sell this thing, like, what do you do there? Well, fortunately, I have a background in food. And it became my passion, right? It's food. And so it was pretty easy for me to take massive action because it was my wheelhouse, like, I got this.

Well, James Altucher talks about idea sex. I don't know if you ever heard heard of James Altucher. But I sure have, oh, yeah. So and he talks about, you know, like, you might not be the best pizza maker and you might not be the best like steel maker. Right? But like how many people out there have a combined knowledge of like pizza and steel and you know, can you put those together and that idea like these successful people in business have found ways to fuse to kind of different things together, you know?

Yeah, and that's exactly what it was. It was just like you had, again, I had all the equipment, I had some knowledge and I'm gaining knowledge on the DTC. By reading James Altucher and Gary Vee, obviously and I spend

my time doing this because Gary Vee like literally did good for you. And I was working, I mean, I side hustles for like seven years or something while I had the security of a corporate cooking job. Sure. But I was commuting every day. And I started with, you know, crush it listening to an audio book in the car fatten, you know, listening to his podcast. Gosh,

if you listen to Gary for five minutes, you're gonna get some competence, right? And you might hate him, though. He

has a lot of people who don't like his style. But

yeah, it's funny, I think you come across as well. I mean, super competent. I almost like he's like, he could be you could consider him like a salesman, but he's not like he's super passionate about what he's talking about. He's real. He's kind. And those are the real, the traits that I love about him is his kindness. I've got a chance to meet him a couple of times. But, you know, like his crush it. In fact, I think it was like chapter seven. It was marketing. I'm like, I'll fire it up. This is great. What's he going to talk about housing and talk about market, he was one word, car, he to care. And it's like, boom, like, it was just like this thing came down from the sky, and said, Exactly, that's exactly what you should do, you know, which entails maybe responding to every email to comments on your Instagram page. And not to saying, you know, thumbs up, or whatever, maybe really responding put a little heart into what you're saying, you know, scale the unscalable. And that's power, it's so powerful for all of us. And, you know, I can't tell you how many orders I've lost money on, or I've sent double steals, or shipped twice or three times, not because I was trying to turn a profit because to make that person happy. Because if I can make that person happy, maybe they're going to tell a friend or two. And if we're talking about pizza, by the way, there's some math formula works in our in our favor. Because as you know, cooking at home, for friends and family and sharing your creations is there's more to it than just the food. It's like putting your heart into it. So there's so much at play here. And by delivering that people will talk about you forever. And that's kind of been our mantra

and pieces. One of the most fun things that you can do with a group I found like, you know, get all the toppings out on the island or whatever. But you know, the process of rolling and stretching the dough, especially if you have kids, I have nine year old twins, they love being involved in the process. And everyone likes a different pizza. So it's nice to be able to customize the pizzas and just you know, do a little smaller one and throw it in and get it going. And I really quickly want to share like a horror story because I did take a baking steal to someone's house they they bought a cooking class for their teenage daughter. And I knew they weren't going to get a baking sealer or thought they wouldn't but I wanted to take one and show them how to do it. So I'm making pizza at their house. I brought a full size sheet pan to carry it on. We make the pizza whatever, you know, I got to get out of there. It's still warm. I put it on the sheet man. I'm walking out and I don't know what happened but it shifted and the steel slid off the tray and fell. Oh, lor. Oh no like breeze. And the things still probably close to like 500 degrees. I don't know how it didn't melt their floor. They had like laminate floor in there. And I'm like, I can't get my fingers under it because there's no lip and it's like sit and I like run through my gear and I'd get like two spatulas and I'm like lifting it up with my oven mitts. It's burning through my oven mitts because it's so hot. And I like chucked it on the sheet tray and I'm like, I'm gonna be buying like$10,000 of floor and I looked and there wasn't a mark. I don't know what made up. I thought for sure it was gonna melt this giant rectangle. That's bad. I've slept it to someone's house for a cooking lesson. Because then they stay hot for so long. That's the thing is like I didn't think about, oh, I'm gonna make this pizza in an hour. I'm going to leave and it's still going to be 500 degrees. I mean, it would have been fine if it stayed on that pan. But just the way that it like slid off that she was like oh my god, I was horrifying. Yeah, yeah,

it's horrifying. And I can't believe I went through those scenarios in the beginning. I'm like, Don't do this. This is and I actually had I had some some marketing professionals come in and tell me this is nuts. You're crazy. There's no chance you're gonna have a selling this thing, let alone being in a store somewhere. Someone can't walk that right walk that out. In any case, we were able to to make that transition and make it happen which was great.

What are some of your favorite things besides pizza to do with it? I know you have a cookbook and a whole arsenal things what are your favorite things?

You know we call it a baking steal because we knew we do more than just just pizza. So we started getting into looking at different recipes when we really took a deep dive into pizza dough. Really try to master that if you will. And then we started looking at other bread types of things. And one thing that was fascinating to me for some reason and still is today is like English muffins. And how do you produce delicious perfect English muffin. And I, at the time, I always thought there would be baked this didn't know. And there are some recipes that require baking on the nose muffin side, but we decided to do fry fry him on the stovetop. On the griddle, we have a baby seal we call maybe steel griddle, and they we find them like avocado oil or clarified butter, few minutes, five minutes aside or whatever. And they're basically the best English muffins you'll ever have. Especially if you do a one or two day fermentation with that dough, which adds that extra level of flavor. So that's something that's not anticipated. Obviously, like Kenji would do. Smash burgers are incredible. Put the baby on your grill or put on your stovetop.

It's great for like a post Soviet on the steak, you know? Yeah, like get them out, dry him off and then throw them on there just to get a good

Yeah, cuz you know, CBD, every cubic centimeter of that steak is cooked perfectly, then we just do a quick sear at the end. You know, because the steel is flat surface you get like incredible sear on both sides. And still today, one of my favorite steaks, right? Is the Suvi tear that we call it?

Well, I'll tell you, I just made bagels at home last week, and they were amazing. It's actually mentioned in an upcoming cookbook. I'm not sure when our episode is going to air but Kathy Barro, I don't know if you know who she is. She's written a number of books. Yes, just wrote a book on bagels that is coming out March 15. She's going to be on the podcast, she's a previous Oh, nice. And she recommends that too. You know, she says this would be best. If you don't have that, then you can do you know a stone. And then if you had to do an inverted sheet pan, but the steel would be best. So it's like a 60 to 92nd boil on them and you take them out and just throw your toppings on and pitch them right on the baking. So and it's great with parchment, like I just put parchment on appeal, and then put the wet bagels on there and slide the whole parchment right on. And it's like 14 minutes to cook and they're amazing.

You know, I can help folks who put a sheet tray on top, right? Because now you can get even cooking for cookies. Bagels. Pies are amazing, like slab pies or pre a pie plate, the Pyrex glass, right on top of steel and everyone's first reaction is they're gonna bust the

glass. Okay, cuz I had this question last week at home. So glass is fine to put a Pyrex on it.

Totally. I'd use a brand name like Pyrex. But yeah, glass because essentially, the steel isn't going to get hotter than what we tell it. Right? Right, we set our oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, that's what the steel is going to be, but it's gonna be edge to edge. Whereas those oven racks, if you think about it, it's not storing any energy there. It's just a rack to support what's going on top. Well, now we're going to steal and whatever goes on top, edge to edge. In the case of a pie, you're going to get a really crispy bottom, which to me is unbelievable, because I've had so many pies of slice into them the other slice the wet bottom.

Oh yeah. It's like, like, I'm always trying to find the best way to make a pie crust that is nice and crispy on the bottom. When I'm a big fan of pan pizza, like as much as I like, like, growing up in Massachusetts, we only had Greek pizza where I grew up, which was sure you know, a lot like that. And then there's, you know, bar pizza, if you want to get into the very moment of like Massachusetts pizza. It's like no next level. I don't think I had Neapolitan pizza until I was in college, to be honest, like we only had Greek pizza in Marlboro. And you know, that crispy crust is kind of like pan fried. And that's what I loved in the first time. I had like a, you know, flowery kind of dry crust. I was like, what? It was just a weird today, you know, and I was, you know, 18 years old, I'd never really had pizza like that, that I could remember.

And you using like a fork and a knife to cut it. But that's the neapolitan style is cool. By the way. It's its own like zone. There's so many styles. Yeah, sure. It's great. And I feel like the baking stealer that does it kind of takes the the ingredients of a Neapolitan the simplicity of it, and crisp sit up on the bottom, which I prefer, personally, a crispy bottom with a light of the light airy crust, which creates because you know, I'm making I don't know about you my time on a bacon steel pizza now, and my ovens, like, you know, two or three minutes.

What do you think about putting a pizza like building it on parchment on like, normal pitching pizza? Like, I've tried it just like it comes out. Okay, but not always like, I've seen people on forums talking about like, yeah, just put parchment on your peel, build the pizza on that and then slide the whole thing on on the paper and give it you know, like, maybe even a minute and try and pull it out or, I mean with the bagels that worked really well that it conducted straight through the parchment. What are your thoughts?

Oh, yeah. That's a great. Yeah, totally. In fact, yeah, that's a big question. In fact, we teach classes And our bait and steel Test Kitchen. And the number one question is the launch right everyone's It's horrifying. Going into a 500 degree oven, you got this thing like a little handle on it, and you gotta kind of shimmy it off. Well, there's some techniques you can use. Yeah, but first, your parchment. Yes, great ideas. In fact, it allows the ease, ease of the launch, because you can just take a core of the paper and kind of slide it on top right. The one thing I don't like about parchment one, it's not as traditional. So it's not as cool, right. But, two, I like to use the broiler. I know some experience, you use the a gas broiler with parchment paper, you have a fire?

It's totally Yes. Yeah, because I do like I've read the techniques of you know, like, you heat the steel for like an hour, then you shut off the oven. But you turn the broiler on for five minutes. And you know, like toggling back and forth between kinda hot like put it on the up towards the top, get the boiler so you have the radiant heat. And I don't know, is a wood peel better than a metal because I got one that was like metal and I have a friend who's in the pizza business, he's like, you should have gotten a wood one like that you have less trouble like getting it. That's a

good point. And I think the theory behind that is, you know, pizza dough generally and is moist, right? Get some moisture. So the wood peels in a whisk that away a little bit better than a metal peel wood. So you have wood to launch for sure. I know, some people will use the metal to help retrieve it out. Which is I think a lot easier anyway to use some tongs or something and slide it back. Because now it's its hole. But when it's when it's that dough is loose and soft, man, if you can't get it off, you're gonna have some trouble. We call the ed the in an unintentional Cal zone.

They're still edible, but I've definitely learned it. And then like the sauce and the cheese, kind of like slides right off onto the steel. And then you have like, oh, yeah, looking and sauce there.

It's a mess. The better you get, the less, the easier becomes it takes practice. And I you know, I

urge pizza all the time, right?

There you go. That's the best answer. And if you're really, you know, really horrified, you know, take some playdough a piece of cardboard, something on appeal, and just practice like shimmying. The idea is the best that peel first, with a little bit of semolina flour, a little bit of flour, less is more this practice. And again, honestly, after one, one good practice session of two or three launches, you'll you'll have it it'll be intuitive.

Yeah, I feel like after half a dozen or so I was getting better, it's still still needs a little work. But it just means I need to make more pizza. Do you have anything you want to leave the audience with? Before we get out of here today, anything, we didn't talk about any words of wisdom,

you've got such a great audience. And you know, as an entrepreneur, and as somebody who's in the food world, and talk about ideas, you know, execution is everything. Ideas are great, but you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Don't, it's never going to be perfect. Just go out. And if you really feel like you're feeling this thing, and this won't go away, go make it happen. You know, take that very first step, take massive action. Don't worry about what people are going to tell you don't worry about that. You know, them clobbering, you like this is a bad idea. Just go out and do it. And take that first step, you will be so happy and proud of yourself. I still to this day, think back to that time I read that article. And so happy that I took massive action. And it took me again, eight to 12 months to believe in myself. But I did. And that was again, not perfect by any means. But I did it. And I'm so happy today that I followed through. And I do the same thing today. If I have an idea, and I really I'll take those first steps. They're not always going to work for me, but I'll learn something. And that's my mantra is something always leads to something.

I believe in just like incrementally like if you're getting 1% better every day at something oh man, the right direction. The same with the business. And the podcast as well. I mean, I've often said if you listen to our first podcast, they do not sound great. I was not trained in this. It was something that just kind of we started I actually had a co host when we started, and we just did it. And I didn't know anything about audio engineering. I didn't really, I wasn't a great interviewer just like, but we just did it. We sat down with people who we liked, and we wanted to talk with them and interview them and put it out there. And yes, we got some feedback that the audio quality wasn't great, or the leveling wasn't great. And then you just take that it's like, okay, they have a point. Let me watch some YouTube videos on how to do some audio leveling, and then it's like, Okay, I've kind of got that part down. How do I become a better storyteller? How do I, you know, I didn't use to write down questions. It was just kind of like, on the fly. And I think a lot of people think that is not professional like in the podcasting world. I hear people say like, Oh, you don't wanna have questions. You just want to be a natural conversation. Yeah, but like there should be some prompts somewhere. Sure. Yeah, right. Great advice, but it was just like if I had overthought it I never would have got going, you know, so many ways to just say like, I don't know this. I don't know that. What about this?

You don't know anything, right? We still dumb. And I guess in someone gave me an advice I got beat up and I still do once in a while from comments are no one successful is ever going to, you know, be that guy and criticize you. They're always gonna be supportive. And so if anybody's they're just kind of throwing stones at me. You know, let's put the microscope on them if you will. And it gave me the confidence to like, have thicker skin. Don't worry about someone slams me because I'm in the arena. I'm doing it. Right. That's all that matters.

I think that's an amazing place to leave the episode, right? Like I can't think of anything better to finish off with because I that's how I like to live my life as well.

I love it. Thanks for having me, Chris.

Thanks for coming on the show. I look forward to continuing to follow along on the internet and see what you're doing and I'll be shooting you questions as they come up if I have any baking steel or pizza related. It sounds great, man. Thank you. And to all of our listeners. Thanks for listening. This has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Go to chefs without restaurants.org To find our Facebook group, mailing list and Chef database. The community's free to join. You'll get gig opportunities, advice on building and growing your business and you'll never miss an episode of our podcast. Have a great week.