On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 04:25:09 GMT
"jimmyjames" > wrote:

> I have an "unglazed ceramic tile" 5/8ths 14x14 (Sq.)
> It works every bit as good as my 18" round pizza pan with the "holes".
> Except when I use the stone, I have to not only have to heat up the
> oven, I have to heat up the stinkin stone. The people at "bed, bath and
> beyond" really wanted me to buy a pizza stone... I asked what the
> advantage was and they said " well, alls ya gotta do is heat the stone,
> take the pizza out of the box, and slide the pizza on to the stone"
> I'll put my pizza up to anyones! Stinkin' "pizza stone snobs"!


Aight. You're on. Come on over any time.

I upgraded from five 7" unglazed ceramic tiles to a 20x15x.75 Fibrament
stone this week. I have one of those perforated pans, too.

The difference is more than noticeable.

The perforated pans trap too much moisture, and the bottom of the crust
ends up being slightly gelled by the steam. Also, cheese gets stuck in the
holes and i hate cleaning it.

The ceramic tile transfers heat very quickly, and the bottom of the
crust is very well seared, but then it's pretty much done. The bottom of
the pizza ends up being over-hard and the quality of the crumb suffers
because of the drop in the rate of thermal transfer. The only way to
compensate is to use a lower oven temperature, and then the quality of the
browning on the top side suffers.

I get a more uniform bake with the fibrament stone. With the oven at
500f the bottom of the crust is not over hard, the crumb is well developed,
and if i use the old tiles to lower the ceiling over the pizza, the top is
very well browned.

I'm still experimenting with it. Made my third pizza tonight. I'm sure
i'll get sick of pizza at some point and have to start making breads on it.

Do i have to preheat it? You betcha. It takes like an hour for my 70's
vintage crappy Whirlpool oven to get it to 500f. But it's worth it.

As for BB&B, I've seen their pizza stone, and it's best used as a clay
pigeon.

Someone here mentioned having a great deal of success with a slab of
soapstone, and i imagine that works quite well. More likely to break than
the fibrament stone, but way cheaper if you buy it as a scrap -- stone
vendors often have likely shaped chunks left over after cutting out a hole
for a sink in a counter top, for example.