Hi all,

I recently received Daniel Leader's "Local Breads" copyright 2007.

One of the essentials, he recommended, was the HearthKit.

Sounds great to me - but apparently if no longer manufactuered or stocked.  Cannot find it anywhere.

If it is so good - why can't I find it in stock?

I just got a hearthkit, and was very pleased with its inaugural run with a couple pizzas and loaves of pain au levain (margherita was beautifully cooked in about six minutes).  However,  it took much longer than expected to preheat all that mass because the oven kept cycling.  The hearthkit's thermometer got up to the mid 300's relatively quickly, but at that point my oven thermostat, set at 500, started to cycle.  It was well over an hour and a half before it was usable and I never did get it quite as hot as desired.  I'm wondering if anyone has tried to trick their thermostat into leaving the element on continuously until the stone is ready?  Or, can someone recommend a different solution?

thanks a lot, Logan

A member of Peter Reinhart's bread forum posted a link to an article on how to make your oven capable of producing a great pizza published in the LA Times today. Read it here.

--Pamela

Does anyone know if the manufacturer of hearthkits is still in business?  Their website has been "under construction" for some time now, and it's not available anywhere except EBAY.  

I ask because I went ahead and bought an unused model off EBAY.  It was real cheap, but I'm hoping I don't have any problems which would have otherwise been covered by warranty. 

Also, I hope this doesn't duplicate an earlier post.  If so my apologies.  I looked around as best I could, but it didn't appear in my search results.

I am having problems with even heat in my oven.  The loaves baked on the top rack pop up just fine, but the loaves on the lower rack tend to spread out a bit rather than springing upward.  The difference is easily noticeable.  I use stones, but I'm thinking that's not enough.  I've been looking at the HearthKit, and Fibrament stones, and also at someone's homemade HearthKit (tiles lining the oven walls in addition to baking stones).  I've also thought about convection, but to get even heat, I'm thinking I'd have to turn on the convection at the beginning of