JoNorvelleWalker

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.

OK, I'll bite. How will aluminum (that despised element, unsuitable as a food contact surface) help me achieve a faster bake?

Yes, but which would Elizabeth of Windsor use?

I should have explained that even though the Thermoworks waterproof is on sale, one would still need to purchase a surface probe to plug into it. Such as the K-028 I linked above. In addition to several surface probes, Thermoworks also offers the self contained surface Thermapen. I have one. Convenient for measuring the surface temperature of pans, but not suitable for measuring a steel in the oven. I've tried. Some IR thermometers also accept thermocouple probes.

Depends what measuring equipment you have. If you don't already have a thermometer that takes thermocouple probes, an IR thermometer is probably the least expensive option, considering the temperatures involved. That being said, as mentioned in the sales and bargain thread, the Thermoworks waterproof is currently on sale! https://forums.egullet.org/topic/153880-current-sales-deals-and-bargains-part-2/?do=findComment&comment=2169034

Have you ever measured the temperature of the steel? I found that after an hour the temperature of mine was still increasing.

It won't be tomorrow.

And if the Queen is into baking pizza I'm sure she has one in each castle.

Ah, yes! I forgot about her grape vine pictures! I have three grape vines on my balcony. And almost limitless grape vines a few hundred feet away.

Sorry. I see the peel cost has gone up substantially. With shipping I paid $103 US. Now on amazon it's listed as $120 US. A bargain at any price. I hadn't been able to get my pizza in the oven properly by any method. Now I can hit the steel without even needing oven mitts. The problem was storing it. I was running out of room in the bed. Finally found a wrought iron wall hook the right size and have the peel hanging proudly in the dining room. A friend who came over this evening remarked I don't waste any space. Don't ask about my four other peels. Edit: all the reviews are 5 star -- as will be mine when I get around to writing it.

I don't have an IR thermometer. I was using a thermocouple: https://www.thermoworks.com/PRB-K-028 I have another surface probe and another surface thermometer I could compare it with. Nonetheless the air temperature reading should be interesting.

A friend at work this afternoon asked my advice for a dish to take to a pot luck. I suggested quiche and a couple other things but she decided to go with stuffed grape leaves. I've never made stuffed grape leaves but they should be easy to serve.

I've been using an Exo Super Peel for transferring the pizza from a Silpat to the steel.

I've been using an 1/2 inch steel and have been getting good results at three to four minutes. Tonight I took temperature measurements directly on the steel as the oven heated: 30 minutes 198F. 60 minutes 364F. 90 minutes 427F. 120 minutes 450F. 150 minutes 477F. 180 minutes 477F. The temperature never went above 477. I did not attempt to measure after running the broiler for fear of my safety. The pie was pretty blackened after four minutes*. Three and a half minutes seems like a good compromise. Still trying to figure this out, I may have gotten the oven calibration backwards. Next time I will try measuring oven air temperature. It should have been around 585F. My air probe goes up to 662F. Thoughts welcome. *though I was using leftover bread dough, not pizza dough.

Possibly but Wikipedia disambiguation didn't help. Maybe Icelandic Symphony Orchestra or Imamia Students Organization.

Thanks! I went with the Mary Taylor Simeti one.