November 27, 2017 - 6:12pm
Baking stone thickness
Hello everyone
I'm currently baking my bread on a 1/4" steel sheet. This gives great results, however with a 45 minute baking time the bottom of my bread is darker than I like, so I'm looking for a baking stone. More specifically in looking at the california pizza stone brand, but I don't know whether I should go for the 5/8" or 1" thick version. Would there be any difference at all if I only bake 1 loaf at a time? Recovery is not an issue. If the 1" would give me better oven spring and crumb, then I don't mind the extra weight and cost. At the same time, I don't want to go heavier and more expensive if there won't be any benefit.
Thanks!
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I think that it was a posting by Lazy Loafer that inspired me to head on down to the local kitchen counter-top fabricator. I gave them the oven shelf measurements, they cut a remnant (of my color selection) to size. Two days later I walked away with my custom deck for $20USD.
In a similar fashion I hit up a stone yard and scored two 24x12 3/8 inch thick basalt tiles for 16 dollars each. As for those pizza stones Ive seen two of them crumble after enough baking and did in fact have a 1/4 incher that literally fell apart one day - I dont thing a thick or thin is going to have much influence on oven spring 'lessn o'course you plannin' on bakin' huge loaves (sorry for the slang just wantched planes trains and automobiles)
sirrith, I don't think you will see much difference in results between a 1 inch or 5/8 inch stone, the bigger impact will be the type of stone, because some stones will conduct heat more quickly than others, though none will conduct the heat as fast as steel. You can find a ton of info on various stones at this site https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?board=49.0 This post suggests that at that time, California Pizza stones were made of corderite, which is pretty resistant to cracking https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=19926.msg195374#msg195374 I found a few other posts which had nice things to say about the California Pizza stone, though a few posters thought the pricing was steep.
Some thinner stones have been known to have problems cracking, as Kendalm notes, but they are often around a 1/4 thick, and not sure what they are made of . There are also some reports that thin granite stones can crack http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32274/granite-baking-stone
Thank you, I decided to go with the 5/8" version. I'll see how it works soon!