"Kenneth" > wrote in message
...
> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 23:38:32 -0500, "Dee Randall"
> <deedoveyatshenteldotnet> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Kenneth" > wrote in message
. ..
>>> On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 17:05:20 -0700, Eric Jorgensen
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>>On 6 Jan 2005 15:07:13 -0800
>>>>"Peter" > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm shopping around for a good baking stone for making bread. I'v
>>>>> found
>>>>> several types, made from ceramics, marble, limestone, granite; someone
>>>>> even suggested cast iron
>>>>>
>>>>> What's your experience from these types?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> www.bakingstone.com sells what is supposed to be the elite stone. I
>>>>don't have one yet. More of a concrete than any of the above.
>>>
>>> Hello again,
>>>
>>> "Supposed" by whom...? <g>
>>>
>>> At only 3/4" thick they can't possibly have sufficient mass
>>> to really do the job.
>>>
>>> For years, I used a piece of soapstone that fit the bottom
>>> of my oven. The stone was 2" thick, and weighed about 80
>>> pounds. It took more than an hour to bring it up to baking
>>> temperature.
>>>
>>> The whole idea of a baking stone is to increase the heated
>>> mass. Then, when the (relatively) cool dough is put in the
>>> oven, the mass of heated material radiates its heat to the
>>> dough. That makes for better pizza, bread crusts, etc.
>>>
>>> Home ovens are (typically) little more than heated sheet
>>> metal boxes. When the dough goes in, the ovens cool
>>> significantly.
>>>
>>> That's the reason that commercial bakers' ovens are so
>>> massive. When we designed our newly built home about five
>>> years ago, I decided to put in a Bongard M2FE. (It's a
>>> French deck oven.) It weighs about 1200 pounds...
>>>
>>> To get a result with the FibraMent similar to my soapstone,
>>> one would have to use 'em two at a time, stacked.
>>>
>>> Of course, the manufacturers know more about this than I,
>>> but they are constrained by the desire to market these
>>> things. They know that if they made them heavy enough to do
>>> the job well, customers would be complaining "that it took
>>> over an hour to get my oven hot enough to bake."
>>>
>>> Also, the FibraMent stones are rather costly. My slab of
>>> soapstone cost me only a few bucks...
>>
>>I don't think I have the FibraMent stone, but I'm using one (abt
>>14x14x3/4")
>>that I've had for probably 18 years. But I always (well - almost always!)
>>heat it for an hour, sometimes 45 minutes, and sometimes over and hour if
>>I'm late on bread rising.
>>
>>You say,
>>"The whole idea of a baking stone is to increase the heated
>>> mass.."
>>Regarding the above sentence, do you think that it is a waste of
>>electricity
>>to heat a stone (even a FibraMent stone) for an hour?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Dee
>>
>
> Hi Dee,
>
> Yes... Probably...
>
> But there is an easy (and inexpensive) way to know.
>
> You could use a "contact" thermometer of the sort that is
> sold to measure the temperature of woodstoves. This is just
> a flat disk with a bi-metallic strip coiled in the center.
>
> I had one of those sitting on the corner of my baking stone
> for years. When it came up to the desired temperature, I was
> ready to bake.
>

Geez, Kenneth, thanks for the great, great tip. We used to have a woodstove
years ago and we did use this type of thermometer to check the outside of
our stove heat.

My husband just bought a infra-red temperature sensor at Costco $69.99 that
I will use this afternoon because I'm baking a couple of loaves today! I
was wondering what that new tool could be used for to great advantage.

So, if it says to bake my loaves at 450, I should wait until my stone gets
450, right? And of course, when the recipe says to lower the temperature of
the oven to 350 if the bread is getting too dark too quickly (Reinhart),
lowering the temperature of the oven is surely not going to lower the stone
temperature immediately. But, this is the way it would be ANYWAY cooking on
a stone. I guess you could take it off the stone, but would one want to do
that.
Dee