"Mike Avery" > wrote in message =
news:mailman.7.1116826190.15451.rec.food.sourdough @mail.otherwhen.com...

> ... If you look at Hammelman's book, you'll see pictures=20
> of bread baked on stones and baked on stones on pans. The=20
> pans interfered with heat flow enough that the bread wasn't as nice.

Although ceramics can be designed for relatively good heat transfer
capability, a thin slab of aluminum is real hard to beat.

If loaves baked on stones/tiles/(whatever) looked better than ones baked =

on aluminum (assuming that is what you are trying to say), it seems that
some other explanation should be sought.

Mostly, as I understand it, the purpose of the "stone" is to hold heat,=20
and transfer it at an optimum rate to the bottom of the doughloaf. (In
fact, the "stone" does nothing for the sides and top of the loaf, and
can shield or scorch the bottom depending on circumstances.)

Book authors (and web-site hosts) have a job filling pages. For that
they tend to promote bread baking to a very complex and ethereal=20
experience, not to mention philosophical, historical, poetical,=20
bibliographical, etc. (Very little scientifical...)

Now, if you are talking about pans, and not sheets (appropriate to the
prior thread discussion), it is certainly true that pan loaves look =
different
than unrestrainedly-baked loaves (sheet- or stone baked).

But, by the time the loaves are eaten, they all look pretty much the=20
same.=20

--
Dicky

P.S. One "m" in Hamel, just two altogether in Hamelman