What's New, and Old, with the Pizza Stone
Stones and Bricks
Pizza stones, stone inserts, terra cotta tiles and even fire bricks are an essentials tool for the home pizza maker and bread maker. My mimicing the brick oven's ability to reach high temperatures, store heat and create steam for cooking bread and pizza, these inserts do a great job of delivery excellent results in a standard oven. For many of us, the pizza stone is the first step toward owning a true wood fired oven.
Pizza stones come in a range of shapes and sizes. The basic stone is a round, between 12"- 14" inches and about 1/8" deep. They are very inexpensive, and they work fine. I have bought stones through mail order, department stores, discount stores, and factory outlets. Retail is about $25, though I can usually find them for less than $10.
Get the largest stone you can find that will easily fit in your oven. The larger stones will accommodate long baguettes, which are fun, and two large round or oval shaped loaves, such as Ciabatta.
One problem with the inexpensive pizza stones is that they tend to crack. I broke countless stones while experimenting with bread recipes and steam in the oven, and ended up using fire bricks (see below).
High-end kitchen and specialty shops also carry big stones designed for serious bread and pizza baking. They are larger than the mainstream stones, up to 18"-20", oblong, and much thicker than the department store pizza stone -- up to 3/4". There are even stones made from compressed ceramics, which get hot and really hold their heat.
The professional stones retain heat better than their thinner cousins, and break much less readily. They require longer to pre-heat, up to 30 minutes. With a price between $40-$50, I would recommend starting with a pizza stone, and seeing where your pizza and bread baking activities take you.
If you are happy to experiment a little, and not
afraid to put a brick in your oven, we have had very good results using fire-brick splits -- roughly 1 1/4"x4"x8". Fire bricks are made using tempered alumina and silica -- the same material used in wood fired ovens, and are are designed to withstand and hold very high temperatures (2000F+). They are also much less likely to crack than clay or terra cotta tiles or low-end pizza stones. A good fire brick costs between $1-$2, so you can cover your oven grate for less than $20.
One note of caution. It was fire bricks in the oven that caused my wife to throw my bread baking and pizza habit out of the house, which resulted in our building a brick pizza oven in our side garden. And look where that got me. You might want to try the bricks on your Weber first, and only move them inside when the weather gets cold.
At the upper end of the range there is a new stone that tries to mimics a true brick oven. The stone is shaped like a U, with a modern ceramic material on the bottom and two sides, The stone slides into a standard oven on a high rack, where it absorbs heat from the oven, and radiates it through your bread and pizza. It even has its own temperature gauge, which lets you know how hot the stone is a^??g as opposed to the temperature of the rest of the over. Still, it does not provide top heat, which is more important than side heat, and with a price of $200, you might want to consider installing a true wood fired oven.
About the Author
James Bairey, a former Silicon Valley marketing executive, is CEO of Forno Bravo,
LLC, a supplier of Italian Wood-Fired Pizza
Ovens and Brick Pizza Ovens and Italian Pizza Ingredients for home
owners and pizzerias.
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