How do you maintain the pizza plate/pizza stone in your pizza oven after use?

A pizza stone will last for years if you treat it well, and that requires very little work. Most stones don’t crack from regular use, but from thermal shock or from moisture absorbed into the stone. Below you’ll read how to let a pizza stone cool down, clean it and care for it after use, whether it’s in a conventional oven, on the barbecue or in a pizza oven.

How do you maintain the pizza plate/pizza stone in your pizza oven after use?

Always let the stone cool completely before you touch or clean it.

Let the stone cool in the oven

After baking, simply leave the pizza stone in the oven, on the barbecue or in the pizza oven until it has completely cooled. That can take a few hours. Never place a hot stone on a cold countertop, in the sink or on a wet surface, and do not pour water over it. The outside will then cool much faster than the inside, and that stress can cause the stone to crack. The same applies the other way around: always put a cold stone into a cold oven and heat it together with the oven.

Scrape off residues

Scrape baked-on cheese, sauce and dough from the cooled stone with a dough scraper or a plastic spatula. Do not use a sharp knife, as that will create scratches and pits in the surface. In a pizza oven you can also, immediately after baking while the stone is still hot, sweep coarse residues to the back with a pizza oven brush and let them burn off. After cooling, brush the ash and loose flour from the stone with a dry brush. A few small black spots may remain.

No soap and minimal water

A pizza stone is porous and absorbs soap. The next time you bake that soap can be released and you may taste it in your pizza. For that reason never use dish soap. If you do want to clean the stone a little, wipe it with a well-wrung damp cloth. Then let the stone dry for at least a day before using it again. Water still in the stone will turn to steam when heated, and that steam can cause the stone to crack from the inside.

Dark spots are normal

After a few bakes every pizza stone develops dark spots from burnt fat, oil and flour. That is normal and does not affect the flavor or how well the stone bakes. So don’t try to sand the spots away, because that mainly damages the surface. Only thick, sticky spots or residues that continue to smell should be removed. For those residues, heating the stone empty, as described below, is the best solution.

Burn off stubborn residues

If there are residues that can’t be scraped off, or the stone smells of burnt fat, place the stone in a cold oven, heat the oven to its highest setting and let the stone sit empty for 30 to 60 minutes. Fats and sugars will burn to a dry layer that you can scrape off after it cools. Turn on the extractor fan while burning off, as some smoke may be released. If you have an oven with pyrolysis, first read the manual to see whether the stone may remain in the oven during the cleaning program.

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A pizza stone is made of cordierite, ceramic or clay. That material is porous: it absorbs heat and releases it evenly to the dough, which gives the pizza a crisp base. It’s also the reason the stone soaks up water and soap. Care therefore comes down to two things: keeping the stone dry and avoiding large temperature differences.

In a pizza oven the stone gets so hot that most residues burn off to ash, which you sweep away after it cools. In a regular oven or on the barbecue more residues tend to remain. Scraping, brushing and occasionally heating the stone empty is then enough. Never use soap and never put a stone in the dishwasher.