pizza stone placement

[November]

Hey! There you go!

Just make the "stone" out of Sodium. Slap a high hydration dough on it, and it will get way over 800 degrees   

Don't even need to preheat (and can't). And cooks the pie in 8 seconds. 

Ok, I GOTTA get back to work.....

- Al

Sodium?!  It has a melting point of 208 F, and I think you're mistaking the secondary reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, or the tertiary reaction of sodium and oxygen, with the primary reaction of sodium and water.  A reaction between sodium and water forms sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas.  This is an exothermic reaction, but it isn't what you are probably thinking.  There wouldn't be enough water in pizza dough to cause a secondary or tertiary reaction.

- red.november

[pizzoid]

Sodium?!  It has a melting point of 208 F, and I think you're mistaking the secondary reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, or the tertiary reaction of sodium and oxygen, with the primary reaction of sodium and water.  A reaction between sodium and water forms sodium hydroxide and hydrogen gas.  This is an exothermic reaction, but it isn't what you are probably thinking.  There wouldn't be enough water in pizza dough to cause a secondary or tertiary reaction.

- red.november

Uh, how _many_ smileys am I supposed to put in to indicate a joke?........

[November]

Two per statement since it was a joke in two senses.  I understood it was a joke from the mere implication one would use a dangerous material for baking a pizza.  At least it could be a material that would function as described though.  Then it would only require one smiley face.   

[November]

Is there a substance out there that would do that, but wouldn't be expensive?   If so....woohoo!

It's funny this subject came up because recently I've been trying to find a quartz pane manufacturer that can supply me with two 16" square samples for testing the viability of creating a thermal capacitor/diffuser in my oven.  It would basically work the same way as I sometimes use my stone now - in the rack position below the pizza, but I would also have one above the pizza.  A ceramic that also works well is silicon carbide, but for my purposes it's much more difficult to acquire the pure transparent form.  In your case, you could use silicon carbide as a pizza stone, but like I said to begin with, it won't be cheap asking a manufacturer to make one for you.  The material itself is actually inexpensive at $4/lb though.  It's highest thermal conductivity is that of aluminum and 74% higher heat capacity per gram than copper (copper's higher density makes that of little consequence).  In that configuration, you would be burning your pizzas as badly as if you were using solid copper.  The beauty of silicon carbide is that it can be engineered to have a thermal conductivity as low as 70% lower than its highest conductivity, giving it the same thermal qualities as cast iron.

Which brings me to the point of using ceramics/stoneware over metal.  You could just use a large plate of cast iron, but you then miss the porosity of ceramics that wick some of the moisture out of the dough, making it extra crispy on bottom.  Assuming you want that characteristic, and you want to remain in the land of the economically sane, keep using what you're using.

- red.november

[canadave]

Hmmmm....now we're getting somewhere!

I would be quite happy to dispense with the porosity of ceramics wicking away moisture from the dough.  In fact, the more moist the dough remains, the better, in my book at least.

If the bottom of the crust doesn't achieve that charred burnt aspect, that'd be an acceptable tradeoff for me, as long as the bottom of the crust cooks faster and/or hotter than with a regular stone/quarry tiles.

Basically, what I'm trying to overcome is this (bear with me):

Here's how I bake a pizza in the oven.  I take the raw dough, shaped into a 16" disk, and put it in the oven for about a minute, just long enough for the bottom of it to firm up.  I also use a fork and prick the few bubbles that sprout up in that time.

I then remove the pizza, put my sauce and cheese on, and put it back in the oven.

I find that the sauce and cheese is just about done, using this method, at around the same time that the bottom of the crust has a nice char.  So that's all good.

The only problem is that my crust tastes on the dry side, even though I'm using a relatively high hydration level in the dough (I'd say about 63-65%).  I figure that the reason is, the dough is baking too long and all the moisture is being evaporated out.

So I'd like to speed up the process as much as possible, so that I get the pizza in and get it out as quick as I can.  I figure the only way to do this is with higher heat.

And THAT (to make a short story long) is why I was hoping to find some replacement for my quarry tiles that would achieve a higher heat.  Because if that were possible, I'd just use that at on my highest rack, and set my top oven element to radiate down at 555 or broil or whatever, and hopefully get that thing (whatever it is) superhot.  And then I'd have that radiant heat coming down directly on my sauce and cheese once it's in, so that'd bake really quickly.

Does all that make sense?  Sorry I'm not explaining it in more "physics-precise" terminology...I'm more of an astrophysics buff than regular physics

--Dave

[November]

Dave,

Your crust is probably coming out on the dry side because you're par-baking the crust, pulling it out, then baking it again.  Since you raise the temperature of the crust during your first bake, the inertia of high water vaporization has been overcome and you will begin to lose water during every moment you have the crust out of the oven, in addition to when you have it in the oven.  Add up all the minutes it takes you to bake the pizza from the time you put the pizza in the first time, to the time you pull it out the last time.  It's almost as if you're baking it for that total time since you'll be losing water out of the oven infinitely faster than the crust is baking, and assuming the crust reaches 140 F, 6.5 times faster than at room temperature.

- red.november

EDIT: I don't really have much more advice on baking surfaces.  If you had an unlimited budget, we could talk about your options again, for there are several that I didn't mention.  You can try cast iron to see if it gives you the results you're looking for.  However, I still don't know why you think the stone needs to be hotter though.  If the stone is 600 F, and you're baking your pizzas at 550 F, you're already providing a decent head-start to the bottom.  Moving the stone closer to the bottom of the oven provides an even greater advantage.  Setting the stone near the broiler to preheat while leaving the oven door cracked open should get the stone super hot, and I'd say that's about as good as you're going to get without exploring severely expensive options.

[canadave]

That's probably true (about the par-baking drying out the crust prematurely).  I have to admit though--I'm nervous about putting the sauce and cheese on the skinned dough on a peel.  First of all, I'm worried about the dough sticking to the peel because of the amount of time I'd spend putting on the sauce and cheese.  Second of all, I'd be nervous about putting the pizza into the oven in that condition, because one false move and the whole thing is all over the oven.  Third of all, I always seem to have to prick a few bubbles in the crust, otherwise they'd agglomerate and turn the whole pizza into one big sauce and cheese pita

I don't know.  Maybe I'm just being paranoid.  I guess I'll try going the traditional route and dressing the pizza before it goes into the oven.

Thanks,
Dave

[November]

Considering most people use the "traditional route" with favorable results, I would suggest trying it at least a few times.

More on a supply of silicon carbide:
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4278.msg35865.html#msg35865

- red.november