Ludmillia wrote:
> Ham Sulu wrote:
> > I've been reading that unglazed quarry tiles are a good cheap substitute
> > for a pizza stone.
>
> This is a great question. Add another person who would love to hear
> some answers.

Pizza stones are a waste of money, why would you want to emulate one.
You cannot turn a residential stove oven into a brick oven... the best
you can do to emulate the results of baking with the old fashioned
brick oven is to bake with perforated ovenware, of which there are many
configurations now available to home cooks. Even the vast majority of
pizzerias nowadays use the pizza screen rather than bake directly on
the stone liners of their pizza ovens... results are superior... next
time you order a pizza check the crust, and nine times out of ten
you'll find the impressions left by the screen.

In a real brick oven the source of heat (flame or electric elements) is
in *direct* contact with the oven's stone floor, ergo the stones become
much hotter than the oven's thermostat setting which controls only air
temperature and therefore are able to maintain that higher heat even
when cold dough is placed upon them, whereas pizza stones cool
substantially immediately and stay cool due to moisture emmision... if
it takes 30 minutes to preheat a pizza stone how long do you think it's
rate of rise is with a blob of wet cold pizza doufh slapped on it....
and baking near the top of a hot oven is certain to burn the top of
whatever is being baked while the dough in contact with the pizza stone
stays raw. With typical residential ovens air circulation is your
friend, use perforated pans, not pizza stones.

Sheldon