Which Pizza Stone

[NulloModo]

Heya,

Wow, I started this thread a while ago. After I arrived home with my initial LnT stone (which was pre-shattered in the box for my convenience) I exchanged it for an indentical, non-shattered stone. Since then I have used it quite a bit. I still haven't perfected my LC pizza dough recipe, but it is getting there, and the thing is also great for flax bread.

[Rachel Perlow]

FYI - I have 6" unglazed tiles lining the lower rack in my oven. They're only about 1/4" thick, but definitely work. In this shot of some recently baked pizza, you can see the grid pattern created by the tiles, but you can also see the crusty benefits. Mmm.

[slkinsey]

So the question remains: is it really necessary to pre-heat for so long? I could understand it if the stone was two inches thick, but my quarry stones (and most of the pizza stones I had previously considered buying) are not quite 1/2 an inch. Does pre-heating for an hour make any difference than pre-heading for 30 minutes? How about 15 minutes? 5 minutes?

If you preheat for a long time, it means that everything in your stove -- not just the air inside the oven -- will come up to temperature. This is important in terms of radiant heat, and its important in terms of temperature recovery when you open and close the door of the oven.

Also, if you have a gas oven and the stones are on the floor of the oven, the burner is more or less firing directly into the stone. With careful manipulation of the oven, or simply turning it to "broil," you can easily get the stones over 550F. If you're making thin crust pizza, this is a good thing.