I don’t disagree. Bernie’s right and we are talking thermal conductivity in addition to thermal mass. It’s nigh just impossible to replicate the bake from a brick pizza and and home, no matter what we do. So we do what we can. I’ve found steel is just not very good compared to my results obtained using either a stone and an array of saturated linen, or a cast iron cloche as advocated by the Tartine approach. I should note I’m talking about levain only, not pastries.
if folks haven’t read it but are interested, the late Alan Scott was a guru behind a resurgent interest in traditional brick ovens. See The Bread Builders.
Mud ovens, too, are pretty wonderful. There’s some cultural anthro study out there re the traditional mud ovens of Quebec, 16th century on. Forget it’s name, but it’s somewhere and fascinating.
At any rate, this is pretty far off Anova, apologies. Just wanted to share my experience. Will beg off now.
