On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 03:35:49 GMT
"Raj V" > wrote:

> Eric Jorgensen wrote:
> SNIP
> > 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.
> SNIP
>
> I'm curious, what is there about the fibrament stone that allows it to
> cook more uniformly than the ceramic tiles, the thickness? My old
> Saltilo tiles were about 3/4 inch thick and made the el cheapo Sears
> oven we used at that time fairly usable. They cracked, but I used them
> for almost 20 years that way with no problems.


I've never used saltillo in an oven, so I can't compare it directly.

The fibrament cement is a mixture of heat conductive materials and
insulating materials that ensure a more steady rate of thermal transfer.
Certainly more steady than my old ceramic tiles, which are admittedly
denser than saltillo.


> The oven of the local pizza joint, Fuzzy's, is set to almost 600 degrees
> and has what looks like a thick brick-like floor. Since it is constantly
> being opened I assume it probably stays around 500 degrees. Excellent
> pizza BTW.


The pizza fascists from Naples mandate an oven temperature in excess of
700 degrees. At least if you want to call it Neapolitan Pizza (tm). At
these temperatures, the bake time is less than 2 minutes.

There are probably a lot of good commercial oven floor materials.
Fibrament is the only one that I know of available in a home oven product
that can be ordered online and arrive at your door inside of a week, with a
10 year warranty.

With my ceramic tiles, I had this problem. The accepted wisdom is "as
hot as possible" but at 500f the ceramic tiles were turning my crust into a
cracker. I had to back it down to 425, and then the outer crust still came
out crunchy.

With the fibrament slab, it takes a lot longer to get it up to 500f
than it took with the ceramic tiles. My bake time is shorter than it was at
500f with the ceramic tiles.

There's a distinctive acrid stench of searing dough when the stone
starts to dump heat into the pizza. With the fibrament stone, it's not as
strong, and it doesn't last as long. I suspect that this means that the
peak thermal transfer rate rapidly drops off after the initial contact.

But, the crust is cooked through faster, which has to mean that the
curve flattens out and i get more heat over time than i did with the
ceramic tiles.

The other great thing, the outer ring of the crust is crisp and browned
on the outside, soft, fluffy, and chewey on the inside. This was a
surprise. I did not expect this at all. It's also very nice.

It looks like the secret to bubbling cheese and browned toppings
WITHOUT an overcooked crust at home is lowering the ceiling over the pizza.

If you go to Lowes or Home Depot you can get five 7" unglazed quarry
tiles for about a dollar each, and if you *ask, they will grudgingly admit
that they can cut one of them for free. Have them cut one of them squarely
in half, perpendicular to the ridges on the underside of the tile. This
will give you a 14x17.5 ceramic shelf on one of your oven racks. Assuming
you can fit that on your racks. This is what i used to bake my pizza on.

With this 6" above the pizza, by the time the outer ring of the crust is
browned, the cheese in the center is bubbling and the pepperoni has started
to curl upward. This is probably true even if you're baking a frozen pizza
on the bare rack.

You'd think that all the open air space above this suspended ceiling
would kill the effect, but it doesn't. I should experiment with putting, I
don't know, a pan of bread sticks up there.

It might be possible to get some of the same effect by putting a half
sheet pan (cookie sheet? what's that?) on the rack above whatever you're
baking your pizza on, but I'm not going to experiment with that until the
next time i get roped into baking pizza at my parents house.