Homemade "HearthKit"

[apizza]

Since there is so much talk about ovens here let me ask a question. I feel our newer stove (about 5 years) gets much too hot on the surface where the four stove top elements are. Our old stove (1969) never got this uncomfortable when I pushed it to high heat. I expected much better insulation for a newer stove.
 
Since the old stove still ran well it's in the basement for my use. (green was out)
 
Anyway do you folks have any comments on how hot the stove surface gets at about an oven temp of 500-550, or even 475? Ours is a self cleaning model so it should be built for high heat. Can you put your hand on the surface and leave it for awhile?  The newer stove is a Maytag. Love the electronic thermostat, but I find the high surface temp a slip in design. The idea is to keep the heat in, I believe. Any brands you find built with better insulating abilities? Thanks

[Perk]

Great Set up Steve!
I got to try this out.

A question, Since I have a self cleaning oven, What if you preheat the bricks using the Self Cleaning method?

I mean turn on the Self Cleaning this should get the oven as hot as it possibly can then once the bricks are to the right Temp. turn it to max or top broil and cook away.

Just a thought, I'm sure someone has already done this and said this in a different post but I just now reading on the Hearthkit stuff.

[Steve]

A question, Since I have a self cleaning oven, What if you preheat the bricks using the Self Cleaning method?

Your oven door will lock shut on the self-clean cycle and you will not be able to open it to insert pizza. 

[Perk]

Your oven door will lock shut on the self-clean cycle and you will not be able to open it to insert pizza. 

You are absolutely right my fellow friend!! 

I just tried it, I preheated my  stone on clean mode, and the basstad stove wouldn't unlock until the oven cooled
down to 550F. Which is my max baking temp!

Maybe it heated the stone up hotter, I don't know but I do know I'll do it again next time too
since the crust turned out great for me today.

[Park.Pizza]

I wanted to copy your idea for using tiles. But after going to the 3 large homebuilding/hardware stores in Milwaukee, I've have'nt been succesful. The closests I got was unglazed red ceramic tile. But the issue was that they had "Slica" in them. Bad stuff that can kill you. I also went to the tile stores but they won't sell me any thing because of the liabilty.

So if you folks have any suggestions, I'd appreciate them.

cheers,
Tim

[Park.Pizza]

Well, I've learned alot about Silica lately and I've purchased some of the red clay tiles. We've made some great pizza's on them.

[billneild]

As to the self-cleaning oven bit, take a hint from one of our fellow members and hack the locking mechanism off.  He cooks his pizzas at 800 degrees!  Maybe not recommended by the manufacturer, but we're talkin' PIZZA!

[briterian]

Hi Steve,
Are you still using your awesome homemade HearthKit?  I tried it this weekend. I unfortunately put my tiles on the oven base  and and at 550, the tiles got up to 680 and burned the bottom of my pizza. On the second pizza, I changed the temp to 450 and my tiles got to around 550 and the bottom turned out great but the top wasn't as crispy as I wanted (even though the kids liked it).

I know what I need to do, I think, but wanted to talk to you. I am going to move my tiles up to the middle of my oven and preheat at 550 - as you illustrate.  The tiles should get at around 550. But I wanted to know if you still put the oven on broil as soon as put your pizza in?  I am afraid it will burn the top of my pizza but I'm up for it if does the trick.  I think I need to have the top of my oven at around 700 to have the top crust brown nicely but not quite sure how to go about producing that kind of heat.  I was thinking of buying a stone and putting int on the top rack to radiant the heat downward.  Any ideas?

[bocajr9]

Hello,
I like what you did with your oven. I want to do the same for mine and had a few questions. How safe is putting tile in your oven? Is it a fire hazardous? What do you have to look out for? Do you just leave them in there all the time? Thanks sorry for all the questions. Really excited to buy some unglazed tile and start baking.