On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 21:37:27 -0500, "HUTCHNDI"
> wrote:

>I know, I am being a pest.
>
>I just picked up some unglazed quarry tiles at Lowes. 8"x8"x1/2"....Does
>anybody have any experience using them or a link that may be helpful? I am
>wondering things like do I need a space for air circulation between the
>walls, do I bake directly on them or use parchment, do they need to be
>seasoned, can I leave them in place all the time, ....
>
>Thanks, Hutchndi
>

Howdy,

You are not being a pest at all...

You need not worry about "space" because no matter how you
align them, there will certainly be spaces.

They don't need any preparation other than washing them off
before you bake on 'em.

You can use things like parchment paper, or you can bake
right on the tiles if you are using an intermediary surface
such as a peel.

All that said, the tiles will not do anything magical:

The issue is mass, and the tiles you describe are just not
very heavy.

Most home ovens are (essentially) sheet metal boxes with a
heat source and some insulation. They have very little mass.
As a result, even if the oven is pre-heated, it cools
significantly when the cool dough is put in for the bake.
Ideally, we would like to have an oven massive enough that
its temperature hardly drops when the dough goes in. That is
the reason that breads made in huge massive ovens usually
have better crust and color than can be done with the
standard home gear.

For years, I had in the bottom of my oven (and it was a
Garland commercial beast that was quite a bit heavier than
what one ordinarily finds in a home) a very thick (about 2")
slab of stone that I got from a local brickyard. The thing
weighed 80 pounds or so. It took well over an hour to bring
it to baking temperature, but once heated, it took a long
while to cool. Said another way, it "stored" lots of heat
energy and it liberated that energy to the bread when the
bake started. It worked extremely well.

When we built our new home about four years ago, we put in a
Bongard deck oven. It weighs on the order of 1400 pounds
and, as a result, doesn't seem to "notice" when I put in
four 2 pound boules.

If you feel that the structure of you oven can take it, you
might consider something heavier than the tiles (or, by the
way, more tiles simply stacked.)

One final thought:

If they come from a supplier that offers them expressly for
baking, they will cost many times the amount one would have
to pay were they offered by a construction oriented stone
supplier.

All the best,

--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."