Baking Stone
I decided after a few sensible, somewhat alarmist, posts here on TFL that i would not buy unglazed flooring tiles (terracotta, saltillo, etc) for use in my oven. There are too many health concerns involved with the manufacturing and raw material differences between flooring tiles and bakeware. Any cause for concern should not be ignored. It's likely that flooring tiles could be perfectly fine to bake with. On the other hand, maybe not.
It helps that I'm getting a good amount of money back after taxes, which I decided to spend on a baking stone and other baking equipment. And to keep track of what I could get, I'm putting together this list:
Sur La Table, (Best Manufacturers) $42, 14x16x5/8
Old Stone, (via Amazon) firebrick, $29.95, 14x16x?
Breadtopia, Fibrament, $51, 13x17.5x3/4, $69, 15x20x3/4
Ace Mart, American Metalcraft, Corderite, $44, 14x16x1/2
Central Restaurant, Fibrament, $58.49, 15x20x3/4
i never thought i'd see the day that sur la table looked like an economic option!
Comments
I haven't tried any of the others, bu I have nothing but praise for the old stone one. I've had it 2 or 3 years now and not a chip on it.
I'm not certain of its exact thickness, but it ways over 11 pounds, so it is pretty substantial.
The dimensions, as listed on the Amazon site, is 18.1 x 17.4 x 3.3 inches. How long does it take to heat it up?
I think that must be the dimensions of the box it ships in. It is definitely thinner than that, somewhere in the 1/2 to 3/4 inch range.
I typically heat it for half an hour to an hour when I'm going to be doing a lot of baking.
You might also want to add http://bakingstone.com to your list. I have one that I'm very happy with. It covers just about my entire rack.
Happy hunting.
Frosty
a price quote from bakingstone.com put a similarly sized stone at almost twice as much as any of these other vendors.
i did find their site but decided not to include it since it was so much more expensive.