(Oven Temps)Do I have a Freak Oven?

[chickenparm]

I have never really paid alot of attention to my oven temps. I have an IR gun and have seen temps around my stone get to 620 and my oven about temps around the same or a little more,but I never really did see what it was able to push out.

When I open the oven door,the temps,of course drop alot,sometimes very fast.When I took readings in the past I was always around 550 on the stone,or about 600+ F in the oven.These were done around 45 minutes to under an hour.

Tonight I decided to let the oven heat for about an hour an a half.I have no cleaning cycle either.I also have an exhaust that lets heat out under the rear burner on top of the stove.I did not block it off either.

I used my IR gun and was sort of surprised my old oven was getting this hot from just the bottom element.Is this normal while ovens kick on and off?

[chickenparm]

637 F was my stone temps after opening and closing the door a bit.I seen 741 F on it a few times.

The other temp pics were random shots of the oven when the door was open.You can see it dropped off at times.

I was just wondering if this is normal for an electric oven to do this.I did not think it could get that hot on its own.

[scott123]

I think, compared to older ovens, it's probably not hugely unique, but I'm relatively certain that if you compared your temps to newer ovens, it would definitely be a freak.

If your oven can consistently pre-heat your stone above 600, that gives you considerable options when choosing a stone.  625 is probably high enough to work with something with as little mass as a 3/4" cordierite kiln shelf or even possibly 1/4" steel plate. If you can consistently pre-heat to 650, then you might be able to even get away with dirt cheap 1/2" quarry tiles. Should you ever buy a new oven, though, it might make your thinner stone obsolete.

I have a 25 year old oven that, if set to 550, cycles between 525 and 600, resulting in a stone that will read 575 after about an hour's pre-heat.

One critical aspect to stone temps that's easy to overlook is that the exterior temp may be different than the interior.  I've seen lots of members put the stone close to the broiler (or close to the bottom element), hit 625ish temps and make the assumption that they're baking at 625.  In order to see the effects of baking at 625, the stone has to be 625 all the way through.  It has to be completely saturated with heat.

I'm not saying this is what's happening with you, but it's good to be aware that IR readings may not be telling the whole story.

I haven't done a whole lot of this type of testing myself, but a good way of determining how much heat has penetrated the stone is to turn off the oven and take temperature readings every 15 minutes.  If the stone is fully saturated, the temps should drop more slowly than if the temp has only been ramped up on the surface.

[PizzaHog]

CP 
Maybe a little but I don't think it's Rick James superfreaky.  The element running/burning significantly hotter than than the 550 max temp setting seems to be standard operating procedure and is the basis of the various oven tricks used.  I once found a reference claiming that the coils in elec ovens can run as high as 1500 degrees.  Not sure about that but it seems common that proximity to the element shows this temp increase and is the case also in my gas oven where I can read temps near 800 too.  Like Scott said, that is not the whole story, but does offer some interesting possibilities and options for experimentation.

[chickenparm]

Thanks guys.I don't know much about ovens and their heating cycles, yet this is cool stuff to learn about.

I just never knew these ovens can heat as high as that near the floor or the element at times.