JoNorvelleWalker

Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale (of my paycheck) it will be close to two weeks before I can do any experiments beyond canned soup. Meanwhile I shall be studying the subject. But there is a possibility. I have about half a kilogram of several year old milk chocolate bars. Made in Canada. Some filled with caramel, some with almonds. In their present state the bars are pretty vile. In truth they were pretty vile when fresh. But I could melt them down in the Precise Heat Mixing Bowl if that would help for science. Unfortunately Trader Joe's is too far for me to get to. What chocolate should I use that one could find at Shoprite?

My new CSO finally came this afternoon. But for some reason the UPS driver did not take away the coffee maker that had been Cuisinart's first attempt at warranty replacement. A kind friend helped me take the coffee maker and the broken CSO over to the UPS store. Shipment on the coffee maker was prepaid. But I had to pay $28 to ship the CSO ten miles back to Cuisinart. Now I have two Cuisinarts. The newest one is reposing in a seldom visited corner of the living room.

Remember Kerry I know nothing (relatively speaking) about chocolate. When you say "some unmelted chocolate" what exactly do you have in mind? Would a grocery store chocolate bar be sufficient? And how can I tell if the experiment worked? Do I stir as this is going on? And if so with the whisk or with the flat beater? Oh, and I don't know what "seed" means in context.

Sure, what's involved?

Has one. Never tried for chocolate though.

I was thinking of galvanic corrosion in the CSO.

12x12 inch. Which I calculate should be about 14 pounds.

OK, I just took one for the team. One inch 6061. The expression on the UPS driver's face should be worth it. Maybe some pizza results next week. Perhaps a squad of eGullet operatives would like to come over and help me lift it in the oven.

Thanks again for the information and the links. I am not thinking of using aluminum in the CSO. Aluminum sitting on a steel rack in a hot steam oven seems asking for trouble. Meanwhile my 1/2 inch steel in the CSO is great for baking bread. If I get an aluminum plate I intend it for the big oven for baking pizza. I wouldn't say 6061 is what everyone is using for pizza, since a few posts up I read that @Syzygies is using MIC-6. But if you are sure 6061 can take the heat, I will consider it. Cost difference between alloys is not much of an issue. Weight is a much bigger issue. I understand aluminum alloys are all approximately the same density, and what I can lift limits the thickness of the plate.

@rotuts the BBC could never have invented you.

I use milkshake cups to clean my homogenizer. And more often to hold the olive wood and marble pestles for my Italian food processor.

No vongole?

I was about to click but this seems to be the older edition, not the new one.

OK, actually MB (p 1-323) says a dark (not shiny) half inch steel plate produces the best pizza crust. They do not say why. "Although it is staggeringly heavy." Ask me how I know. I've been keeping my steel shiny. Maybe I should let it blacken.

My local metal supplier has a good selection. I'm still doing research. I'm not convinced radiation is what's important. I'm not saying it is not -- just that I am not convinced. Modernist Bread (p 3-282, 3-307) says the floor of a deck oven heats the base of the loaf by conduction. As a side note I see MB has a picture of my lovely long handled Exo peel on p 3-336. They call it an "individual loaf loader". But back to aluminum -- one should consider the alloy carefully. From what I've read many of the wrought alloys cannot take heat. I am leaning toward Alcoa MIC-6, a cast alloy that I understand can be used up to 800F.

Not sure if this belongs here, in the CSO thread or in "I will never again..." Last night I baked three loves of MB lean French dough. I had some of the first loaf for dinner with chicken cacciatore. This morning I heated the remaining three quarters or so to refresh it for my sandwiches to take to work. I managed to carbonize it. Not just blacken it. With the half inch steel still in the oven plus the height of the tray and rack I suspect the bread was touching the top heating elements.

Why do you tie the ribs?

It shows up on sale for me at $2.99, but sadly I was not tempted.

After baking three loaves of bread this evening I'm considering just to leave the steel sitting in the CSO. It's not worth my life. When I can afford it I'll look into purchasing an aluminum plate for baking pizza in the big oven. (OK, I've already been looking into it.) Have any of us besides @scott123 experimented with aluminum? Thickness of 3/4 inch sounds doable but I don't want to buy a copy of Modernist Pizza in a few years time only to learn 2 cm is the absolute bare minimum. I'm still having a mystery about how my steel heats up. With the CSO set to 450F convection bake, after an hour the steel measured only 328F. After an hour and a half the steel measured only 350F. By this time the dough was getting overproofed and I didn't take another data point.

In all seriousness I would not accept a recipe with a promise not to share it ever.

Somehow I was thinking that my steel was 15 pounds. I don't have a scale that goes up that high, so I never measured it. But after mildly injuring myself yesterday I (re)calculated the weight from the density. I came out with 20.8 pounds. Then I did the calculation correctly and got 14.45. Maybe I should consider aluminum? Or maybe I should just act my age.

Last week's loss leader at the local market was corn. This is the time of year for it. Had to buy ten ears. Tonight's dinner was corn. Last night's dinner was corn. Almost as despised as tomatoes. Salad both nights (and for as many nights now as I can remember) was tomatoes.

I shall never again injure my wrist wrestling with a pizza steel. Tomorrow it becomes a bread steel. Assuming I can get out of bed and lift it. The wrist may be sprained. I am applying ice. Systemically. And while I am at it, I shall never again leave the lime juice out of my evening mai tai.

Feeling a bit peckish, and since this is the coolest day we are forecast in a week I decided to take some measurements. I fitted an air probe in the oven and have been graphing the temperatures over the last two hours and a half at thirty second intervals. For one thing I learned the oven's temperature calibration firmware does not work exactly as I'd thought. At least not at the maximum oven setting of 550F. Supposedly the calibration adjustment allows the oven temperature to be increased or decreased by as much as 35F. Well, the decrease part works but I did not measure any difference between plus 35F and zero offset. The maximum air temperature I've hit in almost three hours is 560F, with the temperature oscillating around 553F or so. My dreams of hitting 585F are dashed. Meanwhile the steel in said oven is not getting all that hot. Just like the other day. I compared two of my surface thermometers on the stovetop and they read within a degree. Thus I don't think the surface probe is faulty. Anyway, off to bake the pizza.

I managed to dump a couple pounds tonight on an unsuspecting friend.