5 Best Pizza Stone UK 2023 – Overall The Best BBQ & Pizza Stone

It’s like a “Mini” heartbreak when you pull your ceramic pizza stone out of the oven and hear the sound of a sharp, brittle crack. Unfortunately, your pizza cooking is no more. Obviously, this hardened metallic or ceramic surface was supposed to become a liability due to improper care and usage.

Truthfully, there are tons of pizza stones in the market, claiming the best material, cooking ability, and most elongated durability. But bear it in mind, every pizza oven stone becomes a delicate thing when misgoverned. So, investing and finding a best pizza stone in UK market is our topic today’s topic, giving you some of the best investment options for the nicest pizza cooking experience.

So let’s dig in further;

How To Buy a Pizza Stone – Quick Tips to Ponder On

Buying the best pizza stone becomes a matter of confusion, time-consuming, and problematic when you don’t know which material, thickness, quality, and size is preferable for your oven. So, before you jump on the buy button, let’s see some crucial details about these cooking stones;

Material Plays a Major Role: It may come to your mind what a pizza stone is made of. When it’s shopping time, you’ll see a variety of pizza stone materials posing particular characteristics, including endurance against temperature, thickness, cleaning criteria, and so on. So here are the materials, you’ll face the most

• Ceramic/clay – The least expensive, uses the lightest-weight material than metal and cast iron; clay. Good heat retention makes crispier pizzas, weak against thermal shock; it needs utmost care.
• Cordierite – Comes with finer rock material; Cordierite. Safe from thermal shock but need care for longevity. Relatively expensive and comes in various lengths, sizes and shapes.
• Metal/Steel – Heaviest to move in and out. Excellent at dealing with the lowest-highest temperatures and heats up pretty quickly. Get predominantly used in electric ovens.
• Cast Iron – The most rigid and indestructible material and relatively weightier than others. Retains heat exceptionally well and makes crispier crusts.

Round Vs Rectangular Pizza Stone – A Never-Ending Debate: For some of the pizza aficionados, the shape matters a lot, and certainly, it should be. In our point of view and vast experience, the shape of the pizza stone shouldn’t be ignored as it boosts capacity, versatility, and cooking experience. For that purpose, if you are using electric or gas big deck ovens, an average round (14-18”) or rectangular pizza (16 x 14”) stone; both work well.

However, an average rectangular baking stone should be the priority if you use a commercial or domestic countertop or outdoor pizza oven. Yes, you can choose a large pizza stone, keeping the size of your oven, airflow, and cost in your mind.  Apart from this selection, the rectangular or square pizza stone provides easy handling and space for bigger pizzas. 

Temperature Limits Vs Thickness – Find A Symmetry: Though temperature-bearing capability hinges on the material, thickness plays an important part. In most of the cases, the thicker the stone is, the better it’ll bear and retain heat. A 15mm average ceramic pizza stone can endure somewhat 350-450F.

Similarly, a thicker Cordierite pizza stone of 20-25mm thickness will take more time to get heated and can persist even at 700-900F temperatures. Apart from all this, the thicker pizza stones typically are way tougher than the thinner ones. So the pizza oven stone’s ideal thickness should be a third quarter of 1-inch to 1-inch.

Maintenance and Cleaning – A Pain for Every Chef: A pizza stone’s life wholly leans on how you maintain a pizza stone. Though thermal shock doesn’t affect most robust cordierite pizza stones, it definitely shortens the life period.

Similarly, whether you use metallic stones or rock ones, cleaning with dishwashers or detergents is always not advisable as it can lead you to fresh “lemon and mint cheese pepperoni pizza.”

Metallic stones are sometimes seasoned with oil to avoid stickiness; ceramics stones still should be kept away from these cleaning tactics. Only use a dry cloth to remove the soot and residue particles, and oven cleaning tools like brass-wire brushes and peeler tools come in handy to scrape off stubborn residues like grease, vegetable oils, and cheese spillage.

So, these are the most deciding factors to buy a pizza stone. But then, you can take warranty, price, and brand authority as your point of consideration to pick your next pizza stone in the UK.

Best Pizza stones in UK – Choose from Ceramic, Clay and Cordierite Pizza Stones:

The list is extensive; however, we have cherry-picked some of the best pizza oven plates to narrow down your struggle and hunt.

In a Time Crunch? Want to Make a Quick Decision? Here is the Best Cooking Stones In 2 Minutes!

In an extremely saturated market of pizza and BBq pizza stones, We have picked Love this kitchen Ultimate pizza stone as our winner for the general category. This biggie carries a lot of traits that exponentially boost usability and performance. The most practical Core convection technology and no-spill stopper feature combine to make a lethal combo to beat the competition. However, this pizza expectedly doesn’t come inexpensive, and if you want to look for an alternative, Rocksheat would be a close call. Though it does a turtle walk while preheating, a bigger surface, sturdy build, and higher temperature endurance make it a good preference for versatile menus.  

1. Love This Kitchen Ultimate – Overall The Best BBQ & Pizza Stone [UK]

Why Do We Choose this? First of all, it isn’t a mediocre pizza stone considering its size, performance, designs, and PRICE too. There are many attachments that pick it up in its league to the top. The 4cm thickness with Thermashock technology makes it a lot more durable than the rest of the 16” rectangular pizza stones. Moreover, we like the no-spill stop patent Design that may become newbies and amateur chefs who really feel struggled while pulling out the pizza oven, and it goes forward instead of landing at paddle/peel.

Who’s it For: Bigger baking platforms, somewhat bigger families, travelers, Newbies

Who Should Avoid It: Budget Users, small ovens

The Best Selling Points Love This Kitchen Stone:

• The Core Convection Technology: Beneath the Stone surface, the grooves, including a round structure acting as a nucleus of stone, helps to inject heat more efficiently into the stone. So, it reduced preheating time.
• No-Spill Pizza Stopper: For newbies who find it really tough to use a peel to pick the pizza up from the oven surface, the No-spill design acts as a bridge to rightly connect your pizza to your peel.
• Relatively Lighter Weight: It’s a giant in the 16” pizza oven plate category and holds the highest 2cm thickness. Despite this, it’s one of the lightest weight large pizza stones in its category.

Design and Maintenance:

Luckily, having tested many pizza stones with slight changes in dimensions and temperature range, we have plenty to discuss about the design sense of this cordierite pizza stone. First of all, the “no-spill” stopper feature gave a twist to Leonard as he spoke, “it’s a handle, right?” But then, during the formal testing, it revealed that this feature is Extraordinarily a life-saver or miracle for newbies or even intermediates who feel picking up the pizza from the oven is like passing thread through the needle.

It marvelously boosts the oven’s practicality.

On the other hand, the core convection technology is designed to minimize the heating times by gathering all the heat efficiently in the pizza stone center. This drastically reduces the preheat times and also saves fuel costs.

While these both were pretty innovative things, the 40.6cm pizza stone is fairly bigger and thicker in its category. Posing 4cm of thickness, it still manages only to weigh 4kg or 8.8 lbs. Many consumers say it’s heavier, but when we see the body-weight ratio, it can be a hunger-killing tool for travelers and hikers as the weight ratio is minimum in its category.

The only negative point that Leonard identified is the surface is coated with preserving chemicals that emit odors on initial uses. Though it isn’t that bad and vanishes after some time, it doesn’t affect food quality.

Performance and Temperatures:

Undoubtedly, this is one of the most extensive stone bases for pizza ovens, so go through the dimension before making your decision. It may barely get fitted into mini countertop ovens, and the manufacturer recommends having an oven with at least 15” depth.

Through the specifications, it can bear almost 1500F, which is up to the Neapolitan Standards. Still, Brian tested it with Chicago CB500, and it preheated to 250c in practically 22 minutes, which is definitely a quicker shot seeing its size.

We tested 3 flatbreads, two 8 and 6-inch pizzas, 12 cookies, and 3 breast pieces; the immense ocean-like surface was sufficient enough to manage all this.

Specifically, after the preheating session that got done in almost 25 minutes, the 12” pizza had a perfectly crispy crust, and it was mouth-watering to see cheese dancing on the floor. We assumed the core-convection technology is actually up-and-coming for reducing preheat timing and supplying evenly heat to every edge of this rectangular pizza stone.

The only thing that can be odd between evens is the Initial odor. The pizza surface coating chemical burns on initial trials and leaves a smell that may disturb the sensitive nose. It was moderate in our case, but didn’t change the taste of any menu we tested.

Alternative to Love This Kitchen Ultimate Pizza Stone – RockSheat Ceramic Coating pizza Stone

Though a lot of pizza oven stones are competing against our big buddy, We consider Rocksheat ceramic coating pizza stone as the best antagonist due to its usability and unique coating that not only raises the stone’s elegance but also sweetens the heat distribution and maintenance. Tested at 2200 heat intensity, it withstands 900F, which is somewhat low in a crowd of stones, claiming 1400-1600F. The black coating is a heaven material for those who love to have a stain-free pizza stone. Though there are lots of mismatches between these two, you’ll love the practicality in a much better way.

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2. RockSheat – Most Durable & Lightweight Pizza Stone

Why Do We Choose This? While the majority of the pizza stones in UK market do 500c, and some go slightly beyond 600c, here is an indisputable tolerant pizza oven stone that even bears 800c temperatures without putting any health hazards. So, these above-the-range numbers allow you to put the broadest range of menus and let Rocksheat pizza stone handle this nicely.

Who’s it For: Domestic kitchens managed by expert chefs, travelers, Versatile menus

Who Should Avoid It: Mobile kitchens running in rush areas, Commercial Kitchens facing volumes, large families and big gatherings.

The Best Selling Points of RockSheat Pizza Stone:

• Insane Heat Tolerance: This thing has been tested with 1200c temperatures and has the ability to tolerate 800c of heat, which is truly marvelous.
• Built-In Handles: 4 Divots on both sides act as built-in handles that raise its usability and practicality for newbies too.
• Lighter Weight: Comparing it with the most famous Hans grill, it’s somewhat lighter, weighing 3.2kg, to be advantageous for travelers and outdoor portable kitchens

Design and Maintenance:

Overall the design sense says, “I am robust, but sleek, pick me if you like larger pizzas.” With 12 x 15 inches, we tried 2 pan pizzas, and there was enough room for rotating and managing the pizzas. Although it depends on the oven or grill performance, it can moderately handle the crowds if the size is concerned.

The dual non-glazed surface comes with 4 divots that act like handles. Leonard told us the practicality isn’t above par which the external dedicated handles pose, but these are way better than having a pizza stone with no handle design. Technically, when this rectangular pizza stone cools down, the divot design helps to pick it up from the oven by providing a solid grip to handle the stone’s weight.

While RockSheat isn’t potentially heavy with 0.6” of thickness, the divot style provides supreme ease and convenience to the chefs who don’t opt for cordierite pizza stone due to weight.

One thing more, like many other stones, it quickly gets stained. You can’t control it, but this property doesn’t affect your food taste until you use the right cleaning methods.

Performance and Temperatures:

Looking at the temperature Tolerance ability, we must say it’s one of the best pizza stones in the UK market. The company says they tested it against 1200C temperature, which seems to be a tall claim regarding its safety. Nonetheless, Candie reported to us we actually tried it against 600c, and there were no first-time odors.

Assuming these numbers, we tried this as a baking stone for bread like vegetable and cheese bread, pizzas, beef patties, and caramel cookies; it superbly delivered the yummiest results. The only thing that wasn’t very joyous while seeing in the report was preheating time.

Again, it all depends on the oven performance and heat source capability, but testing it with Ooni Karu, it reached 450c in 58 minutes. This is a kind of slow pace and may not be suitable for impatient guests.

However, the heat retention is incredibly good, after reaching 450c; the temperature was still 180c after 1 hour at a room temperature of 25c. So, you can take maximum benefit of residual heat for delicate menus.

Alternatives to RockSheat Cordierite Pizza Stone – Solido Rectangular Pizza Stone – 14 x 16”

RockSheat has the goodies of eminent heat tolerance and crispy usability but definitely has some limitations. We found Solido as the most immediate contender to Rocksheat in terms of heat tolerance and usability. While Rocksheat has been tested against 1200c or 2200F, Solido is also said to be fought against 2000F. In response to RockSheat sidelined divots, the Solido has multiple grooves under its surface, which gives better airflow and usability than Rocksheat but lacks dual-sided cooking due to this particular design. Also, Solido is bigger in dimension, 14×16”, offering much bigger pizzas, but considerably weightier than Rocksheat, featuring 6kgs and 0.75 thickness that reduce its portability reach.

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3. Emile Henry – Best Versatile Pizza Stone

Why Do We Choose This? You entered the race for best pizza stone in UK and certainly got the products hitting hard at thickness, temperature ranges, and weight/size. However, your eyes somehow get stuck on a pizza stone that isn’t bulky but sleek and slim, doesn’t claim humungous temperature limits but fulfills the industry standards quite well, and isn’t chubby but durable enough. Emily Henry is the mixture of these characteristics that renders charming aesthetics, splendid usability, and admirable performance.

Who’s it For: Newbies – intermediates, moderate budget users, travelers, small families

Who Should Avoid It: Rough and tough conditions, chefs looking beast to cook over 1000F, budget users

The Best Selling Points of Emily Henry Pizza Stone:

• Aesthetics Led Usability: While coming in a slim and sleek profile and 4 different colors, the eye-catching Aesthetics gets a practical touch with two “Proper” handles.
• Super Easy Maintenance: In a world of pizza stones prone to dishwashing, this is certainly a goodie for those who desire easy maintenance.
• Decent Performance: While this is a slim baking surface, it can still safely reach the temperatures required to cook artisans and Neapolitan pizzas well.

Design and Maintenance:

Surely, it doesn’t resemble the “Typical” stone base for a pizza oven. With a unique colorful clay material, first of all, it comes with a glazed surface in 4 different colors, which can fit the needs of aesthetic-conscious chefs. Leonard took this cooking stone and reported a silky, shiny, and non-porous surface, unlike conventional cordierite pizza stones.

The manufacturer says the unique clay material works as a heat retainer and moisture-killing factor in cooking delicious food. Besides that reason, it’s also dishwashing safe and doesn’t attract moisture due to its non-porous surface. Consequently, you can clean off spillage quite easily. However, it’s a glazed surface, so we tested it’s a bit of a scratch-attractive thing when using a peeler or scraper tool. So, hold your horses there.

Moreover, where mostly pizza stones try to enhance the usability and handling department, making not enough design changes in pizza stone design, it actually has a Useful and “Proper” handle design. The side-wise external took some baking space when rendering sweet shifting of pizza stone from/out of the oven.

So, newbies who don’t get used to built-in handle cuts or grooves, these are the perfect design to handle your pizza cooking stone efficiently.

Temperature and Performance:

Well, it might come under cleaning and maintenance part, but the most distinctive feature here is that it’s dishwasher safe. Knowing that, Brain was interested to see how this pizza stone will perform when it comes under stains.

The manufacturer recommends putting this stone in a mixture of water and vinegar, and it’ll be back to its pristine condition. “And it actually works”, Says the Joyous Brian. So, chefs who are lazy while cleaning the spillage after the party, it’s a solution for your cleaning frustration.

Anyways, among the pizza stones targeting 2000F temperature bearing capacity, it’s not extraordinary there. With a 900F temperature range, it meets the Neapolitan pizzas baking standards. Just to check its reach, we tried medium-thin crust pizzas, cheese breads, frozen pizzas and other types of menus. Impressively, the results were super smooth and all under 10 minutes.

Though it can’t replicate the speed of an oven, but not being a typical pizza stone, the pizzas were evenly cooked with crispy crust under 7 minutes. We tested 11 inch medium crust pizza and various kinds of bread and frozen dough, Emile Henry didn’t leave any tiny spot uncooked within no time.

Well, we found out it’s really a “Quickie” to enlighten your dining table with super hot and delicious food.

Alternative to Emile Henry – Kamado Joe KJ-PS23

While discovering gems of pizza stone’s UK market, we got a boy to compete with Emile Henry. With some dissimilarities, Emile Henry wins significantly in the usability department with its external handles. However, Kamado Joe didn’t hold back with its microwave-safe feature, which dilated its scope in the league. While usability is the most competitive department by these pizza stones, the performance and maintenance are almost the same.

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4. HANS GRILL – A Popular Budget-Friendly Pizza Stone

Why Do We Choose This? With a strong brand reputation and presence, it wins the trust of thousands of chefs. On the other hand, considering the practicality and when we measure excellent durability, the 0.60” or 1.5 Cm cordierite unglazed surface matches the high standards, while the ability to cook 15 versatile menu niches really fascinated us. Though there are some usability limitations, it’ll not be an influential barrier to getting a delicious pizza at home.

Who’s it for: Users looking for long-term investment, travelers, home chefs who do a lot of BBQ and pizza, Cordierite lovers, moderate budget users.

Who should Avoid It: Newbies chefs, users who are looking for ultra-light pizza stone, and always want a “Cleaner” or stain-free pizza stone

The Best Selling Point of Hans Grill Pizza Stone:

• Highest Degree Temperature Capacity: While primarily commercial grade and domestic oven stones reach 500c, it can withstand 600c too.
• Easy to Carry: Without losing its durability essence, the 3.54kg baking stone can be your travel partner without a worry.
• Ability To Cook Versatile Menus:  Apart from pizza baking (which is a specialty of this pizza stone), this could be the next go-to bbq pizza stone in UK while adding 10+ more food menus under its umbrella of cooking ability.
• A Cute – Most Practical Gift: We loved the packaging, and it could be given as a gift to your loved ones

Build Quality and Maintenance:

On the design side, overall, the feel and texture look premium. However, the 15 X 11” size is only viable for small family sizes. When Leonard and Austin took hold of this rectangular pizza stone, we analyzed it’s a two-face thing that can be used on both sides (rigid and smooth). With no glazed surface, you can actually feel the porous surface which is an excellent sign for heat retention.

We can say the 1.5cm cordierite pizza stone weighs 3.5kg and is a moderately-weight cooking base; not too light, not too heavy. However, with that being said, handling and managing it in different traveler modes is super easy.

Unfortunately, Hans grill doesn’t come with handles which could have made it a “Hero” for newbies. Just because of this, there might be some usability limitations for less-experienced chefs.

But then, the manufacturer tried to cover it with a complimentary wooden pizza paddle which isn’t much practical due to its thickness. Arguably, Only expert chefs can handle this scenario.

Performance and Temperatures:

The output of Hans grill pizza oven stone is positively incredible. We tested around 7 types of different menus, and it ripped everything to perfection. Apart from being an oven stone, Brian took full use of it as a pizza stone for BBq for defrosting chicken breast and wings; the heat evenly reached inside the bones.

As it’s a moderately thick stone, the recommended preheating time is 30 minutes. Yet, we assumed 450c in 45 minutes. This was a little below our expectations, but seeing the ability to handle 600c impressively broadens its scope of usage in different oven platforms. From domestic electric decks to small Ooni’s reaching 950F, it can be super consistent with every platform.

Moreover, many pizza stones sometimes leave odors on their first run. As this has an unglazed surface, we didn’t find any smell which may destroy 1-2 pools of menus. Similarly, the rough surface was stickier than we expected. The first try of our testing failed due to stickiness; adding plenty of semolina perfectly fixed the issue.

Overall, when it comes to the performance part, Hans grill lives up to its rating and hype.  

Alternative to Hans Grill – Augosta Pizza Stone

Hans Grill is definitely a capable pizza stone for handling diversified menus. However, if you want the same large pizza stone with a much lighter weight, the Augosta pizza stone comes with all the similarities but a moderate difference in weight. The 3Kg (3.03 exactly) rectangular pizza stone is relatively lighter than Hans grill, so it can be more efficient considering portability. However, if you are a little brand conscious, the country of origin is China, which may give you a second thought.

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5. Unicook – Best Entry-Level Pizza Stone

Why Do We Choose This? You dig into the pizza stones genre and will find stones claiming higher, higher… and higher temperature reach. While some are breakable, some are sluggish to attain claimed heights. Meanwhile, Unicook BBq pizza stone has a unique blend of safety, speed, and versatility. Though it has some usability limitations like Hans Grill due to the unavailability of handles, the baking quality is something that’ll impress you anytime.

Who’s it For: Home chefs looking for a moderately priced but durable stone, users want to cook relatively faster, moderately big

Who Should Avoid It: Full-time travelers, ultra Newbies

The Best Selling Points of Unicook Pizza Stone:

• Excellent Build Quality: This is a bulky and weighty pizza stone, featuring 0.6” thickness with a soft, scratchy surface to absorb moisture.
• Speed Cooking Trials: It swiftly absorbs heat rather than consuming hours and hours to reach optimal preheating temperatures.
• Pretty bigger Surface: It’s a bigger surface to cook multiple mini pizzas for kids and impatient and hungry audiences.

Design and Maintenance:

There is nothing special in the design section, as it doesn’t have any additional bells and whistles to make things flashier. With 0.6cm thickness, the cordierite pizza stone’s surface feels soft and scratchy. Many users complained about odors, but in our case, Leonard didn’t report any sort of external odors except some faint oven odors, which is common in the majority of cases.

Although the thickness isn’t extraordinarily distinctive from the rest of the market, it weighs a little high than the pizza stones of its category. Hans grill is its closest competitor, weighing 3.5kg in response to this large pizza stone, featuring almost 6kg. This might be because of a bigger size (30 X 38cm) compared to Hans grill’s 15 x 12”.

Overall, the size may not fit the mini countertops or outdoor ovens, but the body-to-weight ratio defines its muscular endurance against physical and environmental changes.

Unicook doesn’t come with handles which is slightly disappointing when we compare it with competitors like RockSheat and Solido. It could have been a King of competition if it had some sort of handles for better usability.

Performance and Temperatures:

Unicook stone base for the pizza oven, grills, and stoves is a potent mixture of durability, high-temperature tolerance, and swiftness. While pizza stones are reaching the Skies of heat tolerance, one thing that can spoil anyone’s mood is the momentum for absorbing heat, aka preheating time.

We tested it for around 35 minutes, reaching 500c. This is genuinely fast against the stones that consume 60-70 minutes to absorb optimal heat for cooking. Though it can manage well even 750c, we tried a thin crust pizza in our Ooni Karu 16 within 5 minutes, which is really impressive for handling a moderate size of family and group of guests.

And for the food quality, it met our expectations, giving a crispier, a little brownish texture to the base. We had signs of a crispier base in almost 4 minutes, but we gave heat time to get the job done perfectly.

Like other pizza stones, it stains quickly. It came in a tan color, and the default color vanished gradually as it consumed higher temperatures. For users who always want to catch their stone in pristine condition, it may not suit you then. But then, it doesn’t affect the Food quality in any manner. 

But if your priority is having a crispy hot pizza within minutes, Unicook cordierite stone does the pursuit awesomely.

Alternatives to UniCook – Hans Grill, Honey-to-do old stone

While Hans Grill is the closest competitor, it doesn’t match the size of Unicook. For that purpose, if you want to fetch premium cooking quality like Unicook but in a larger and much lighter weight for portability purposes, Honey-to-do old stone says, “look nowhere, your savior is here.” The 3kg premium pizza oven stone retains more thickness, and a bigger 16.5” width in lesser weight means you can get improved durability and a higher volume of pizzas even in most mobile scenarios. The only drawback here is it has a single-face cooking surface.

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FAQs

What is the best material for a pizza stone?

In the ceramic version, Cordierite is the best material to endure all the heat and sizzles. However, in the metal version, stainless steel or cast iron is the most indestructible version of pizza stones, but they usually come expensive.

Are oven pizza stones any good?

Yes, pizza oven stones are good at dealing with moisture and delivering heat from bottom to upside to provide better cooking quality and evenly heat distribution.

Which pizza stone is best UK?

Seeing the Reviews and brand popularity, Hans grill tops the chart. However, we have listed some best pizza stones in UK market; you can check these.