Perfect Pizza Calculator

How the Perfect Pizza Calculator Works

Enter your baking surface, oven temperature, dough temperature, and pizza thickness. The tool solves a heat-transfer equation to estimate baking time and the target bottom temperature for brick or metal surfaces. Related tools: Pizza Size Calculator and Pizza Comparison Calculator.

The Baking Time Equation

Physicists modeled pizza baking with a relation between heating time and dough thickness:

$$a_1 \tau + a_2 \sqrt{\tau} = a_3 d$$

Here $\tau$ is heating time, $d$ is dough thickness, and the coefficients depend on whether you bake on stone or steel. Brick ovens target about 330 °C at the pizza bottom; metal surfaces target about 210 °C.

Brick vs. Metal Surfaces

Brick holds heat differently from steel. Steel conducts faster, so the same thickness may need a different bake time and a lower target bottom temperature to avoid burning the base.