May 4, 2010 - 9:28pm
Fibrament stone
I'm looiking for a large stone that still fits in my home oven - I use an old stone oven 14x16 now - so that I can bake 3 loaves at the same time. (I'm thinking of supplying bread to a coupla people at the office:)). Older posts in TFL suggest fibrament stone, I'm wondering whether it's worth the money and whether it does work well. Thanks for sharing any experience you have with fibrament.
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I bought a fibrament 2 months ago.
My house smelled bad whilst conditioning the stone, it was sort of a chemically smell.
I've cooked baguettes and pizza on the stone, they were amazing. It does take a long time to preheat, I bought a temperature gun so that I can check the temperature of the stone before starting a bake.
That being said, I started selling bread to coworkers and used the proceeds to buy more baking goods. I would save up some money, and then buy several loaf pans, sheet pans etc. My biggest purchase was a used 20 quart mixer for $425, so that I could make bigger batches more quickly.
Seeing that you already have a stone, I would make and sell some bread and save up for the fibrament. It's very satisfying knowing that you've earned your tools doing a craft that you love.
Why extra buying something expensive? For my small home baking business - I bake European breads for a local store - I used cheap unglazed quarry tiles in different sizes from Home Depot for lining one rack in my Jennair convection oven.
I place it on the lowest position for regular breads, and on second highest for pitas. It works great, whether I place loaves directly on the stones or whether they just help maintaining the heat, when I bake several breads on two racks.