For Home Oven Use is Tile better or Stone ?

[Artale]

I was wondering what the opinions were regarding the
use of tile or stone.  Which absorbs more heat the tile or stone.

Kinda  like which came first the chicken or the egg!   

I currently use  a pizza stone and was wondering if I should
switch to unglazed quarry tile.

Which would get hotter under the exact conditions??

Thanks in advance all you pizza maniacs!

Artale     

[Pete-zza]

Artale,

I was hoping someone with first hand knowledge would repond to your question since I was also thinking of trying tiles instead of my stones.

My interest is in making large size pizzas, up to 18 inches (about the largest my oven can fit), without using a pizza screen or a stone designed to accommodate the larger size (like the oversized Fibrament stone fellow member Nathan recently bought). Tiles are cheap and they can be used to cover a good part of an oven rack. They are also cheap to replace if broken. I was also thinking of using two layers of tiles instead of one in order to get higher heat mass and capacity. Having a few spare tiles handy to make an "oven within an oven" was also on my mind, along the lines experimented with by Steve. Right now, I use pizza screens for the larger (16-inch) pizzas I make, but I have found that the bottom of the crusts don't brown up in quite the same way as when I use my stone, even when I transfer the pizza from the screen to the stone as soon as it sets up.

As for your question on heat capacity, the answer depends on the respective materials of the tiles and stones, which governs their heat capacity in general, and the thickness of the tiles (one or more layers) or stones, which is also related to heat capacity. The longer a material takes to heat up the slower it is to cool. This can be important when you are making several pizzas one after the other. Offhand I would say that a single layer of tiles will have a lower heat capacity than a thicker (e.g. 3/4-inch) stone of cordierite or other similar material.

Peter

[JAG]

Don't know if this will help, but check out this web site for ceramics data. Cordierite is #19. To compare cordierite to other tiles, the tile composition needs to be known.

Good Luck
JAG

http://www.matweb.com/search/GetKeyword.asp

[Bryan Chitwood]

A few thoughts on my admittedly limited experience with both tiles and stones. I'd go with a good stone if you've got the room in your oven (and the cash). I use unglazed quarry tiles in my convection oven because I haven't been able to find a stone that will fit. I use a stone I got from Baker's Catalog (1/2" I think, the thicker the better) in my gas oven, and that's where I make my pizzas. It does a very good job for me. The tiles do a good job as well, for don't build up the heat mass (in my opinion) offered by the much more substantial stone. I have no experience with FirbraMat.

The tiles are cheap to replace, but may also move around on you and are not of a piece, as is the stone. I have read that some bread bakers go through a lot of stones, and blame it on the frequent spraying they do to achieve a good crust. Besides dropping a stone, I don't really know of any more ways to break one.

I've also discussed cutting my stone down to fit my convection oven with the folks at Baker's Catalog, and they see no reason it shouldn't be done. I am fortunate to have a mason as a neighbor, and his wet saw should do the job.

Final thoughts: if price is a constraint, having unglazed quarry tiles is absolutely worth doing and you can get them for next to nothing ... if you can find them. I had a devil of a time and finally contacted dal tile directly and got great results. I can't see enough good things about daltile. Their local representative (a warehouse) actually gave me the tiles I needed so I wouldn't have to buy a whole case.

The stone I got from Baker's Catalog was around $30, I think, and I've found it be a bargain. There is one more alternative: firebrick. Wood-fired brick pizza and bread ovens  use these for their hearths and vaults. I can buy them locally for about 82 cents apiece, and they come in different sizes. If I do cut my stone down to fit my convection oven, I may try firebricks in my gas stove. And I'll probably work up a "stone" to fit over my pizza and bread, probably from daltile unglazed quarry tiles because of the ease in handling, as they'll come in and out. I leave my stone and quarry tiles in my ovens all the time now,unless I'm afraid something greasy, etc. will drip on them. Cheers.

Bryan

[Artale]

thanks Bryan for the info

appreciated!