Pizza stones? Tips please



Pete C. wrote:
> "Bob (this one)" wrote:
>
>>Sheldon wrote:
>>
>>>Dee Randall wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>We made pizza tonight. I let my stone heat 1 hour at 550. Each time the
>>>>element comes on, it bakes the stone even hotter, eventually getting the
>>>>stone as hot and hotter than the inside of oven temperature. Don't take my
>>>>word for it, check the bread groups and google. I got this information from
>>>>the scientific breadmaker experts.
>>>
>>>That must be a Magic Chef oven.
>>>
>>>That's not possible, least not on this planet... because if you can get
>>>something inside your oven hotter than the oven temperature you've just
>>>created energy out of nothing... free energy... you've solved all the
>>>world's energy shortage problems. Your scientific breadmaker experts
>>>are obviously just as stupid as you.
>>
>>Once again, our resident blowhole moron shows he's a moron with no real
>>knowledge outside his moronic blowhole moronness.
>>
>>The element is *always* going to be hotter than the oven temperature
>>when it's glowing. The fact that it cycles on and off means that getting
>>the oven to a set temperature only needs part of the heat-generating
>>capacity of the element. It's glowing hotter than any set temperature
>>and heating the stone every time it comes on. It's heating the stone by
>>both conduction from heated air and radiation (the glow) which is
>>considerably hotter than the air.
>>
>>The temperature of the air in the oven isn't the same as the temperature
>>from the radiant element. If it were, the broiler wouldn't brown top
>>surfaces of foods. Put your thermometer up near the broiler element and
>>see how long it survives, moron. Put some lead up near it and see if it
>>melts, moron. Melting point of lead...? Look it up, ignorant blowhole moron.
>>
>>
>>>The only way to create a hotter temperature inside an oven is to
>>>increase the temperature until your pizza ignites, than while the pizza
>>>is burning (giving up its energy) its flames will be hotter than the
>>>oven temperature... of course you'll have nothing to eat but ash.
>>
>>Learn some physics, fatheaded, pontificating moron.
>>
>>Pastorio
>
>
> This thread inspired me to make some pizza for dinner last night.
>
> This bit of the thread had me curious as I could see at least
> theoretically how a pizza stone directly absorbing the radiant energy
> from the ovens element could heat above the ambient temperature above it
> in the oven where the ovens temperature sensor is.
>
> So when making my pizza I got out my Fluke 87 with 80TK thermocouple
> probe to monitor the air temp near the top of the oven and my IR
> thermometer to monitor the temperature of the pizza stone.
>
> At the start, both thermometers were reading 65 degrees. I started the
> oven heating to 550 degrees and periodically checked the temperatures.
> As expected the pizza stone lagged behind due to it's thermal mass. The
> pizza stone eventually made it to the 550 setting a short while after
> the ambient oven air did.
>
> I watched for some time while my pizza dough was rising and while I was
> rolling / stretching the dough, but there was no overshoot in the
> temperature of the pizza stone. It appears that the thermal mass of the
> stone is too great for it to overshoot before it's re-radiated the
> energy to the rest of the oven.

If you heat it with the broiler on rather than just heating the oven on
a "bake" setting, it will overshoot.

> I expect that the bottom surface of the pizza stone experienced
> temperatures in excess of the 550 degree setting, however the thermal
> mass and lag prevented these higher temperatures from ever being
> reflected in the top surface of the pizza stone.

The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting
because it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.

Pastorio


> At any rate, the pizzas came out great with the stone at 550.
>
> Pete C.
 
On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 01:25:45 -0500, "Bob (this one)" <"Bob
"@nospam.com> wrote:

>The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting
>because it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.
>
>Pastorio

Hi Bob,

With respect, you are wrong on this one...

I did it for years and easily had the stone 150F (carefully
measured) hotter than the highest air temperature of the
oven.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."
 
"Bob (this one)" <"Bob "@nospam.com> wrote in message
>
> The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting because
> it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.
>
> Pastorio

Not rue. There will also be infrared heating from electric elements or a
broiler element.

Three ways to heat. Conduction, convection, radiation.
 
Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
> "Bob (this one)" <"Bob "@nospam.com> wrote in message
> >
> > The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting because
> > it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.
> >
> > Pastorio
>
> Not rue. There will also be infrared heating from electric elements or a
> broiler element.
>
> Three ways to heat. Conduction, convection, radiation.

Precisely. But with radiation heat transfer proximity is of primary
importance, typical home ovens are not constructed to take advantage of
radiation heat transfer. With commercial baking ovens the heating
elements are typically situated intimately proximate to the oven's
brickwork, often set within slots or even through holes in the brick,
whereas it is via radiation that the bricks actually become signicantly
hotter than the oven chamber because then the oven chamber is heated
via conduction directly from the bricks rather than directly from the
elements. With a commecial oven the bricks are actually part and
parcel of the heating elements, essentially the bricks *are* the
heating elements. However, pizza stones added to a residential oven
cannot be situated so they can take advange of radiation heat transfer
to any meaningful degree, and in fact they tend to hinder the oven's
normal convection, even with forced convection ovens. And of course
residential elements are not nearly powerful enough, or configured
properly, to transfer meaningful thermal energy to slabs of stone. And
the fact that they take so long to heat (stone is a very good good
insulator precisely because it's a very poor conductor) is significant
in that once cooled they do not recover well, especially via
conduction. And stone can in fact be cooled remarkably rapidly. In
fact a slab of stone can be lava flow hot on one side and
simultaniously be stone cold on the other (again, stone is a lousy
conductor), which is why NASA uses ceramic tiles for space ship reentry
and which is *precisely* why pizza stones are essentially worthless.
Imagine, idiots are paying $30 for 40¢ worth of fire brick, just to
convince only themselves that they know about baking. And then the
imbecilic cooking supply ads (written probably by moronic restaurant
critic types who never actually cooked anytrhing) claim "porous" and
"dense"... which is it, can't be both. The very same idiot restaurant
critics who write prattle like the perfectly rare steak arrived at the
table steaming hot. duh

http://www.efunda.com/formulae/heat_transfer/home/overview.cfm
 
On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 04:36:22 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>"Pete C." <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>
>> Absolutely positively the most important element to successful use of a
>> pizza stone is to run the oven as hot as it will go, 500 degrees or 550
>> degrees is even better. It's still not as hot as a "real" pizza oven,
>> but it's hot enough for the stone to work properly.
>
>And let the stone heat for a good amount of time too. The thicker the
>stone, the more mass to heat so wait al east 15 to 20 minutes.
>

15 to 20 minutes is barely long enough to pre-heat the oven. I think the
stone needs to be in the fully pre-heated oven for at least a half-hour.
(That's my guess.)





Alan Moorman

=========================================
 
Kenneth wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 01:25:45 -0500, "Bob (this one)" <"Bob
> "@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>>The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting
>>because it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.
>>
>>Pastorio
>
> Hi Bob,
>
> With respect, you are wrong on this one...
>
> I did it for years and easily had the stone 150F (carefully
> measured) hotter than the highest air temperature of the
> oven.

Apologies; I wasn't very clear when I wrote the above. I was assuming
that oven was set on baking and the stone would be in the center of the
oven or closer to the top element, several inches away from the lower
element.

Proximity to the element is important for heating the stone over air
temperature. Thanks for your observation.

Pastorio
 
Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
> "Bob (this one)" <"Bob "@nospam.com> wrote in message
>
>>The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting because
>>it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.
>>
>>Pastorio
>
> Not rue. There will also be infrared heating from electric elements or a
> broiler element.
>
> Three ways to heat. Conduction, convection, radiation.

To be sure. But radiation falls off as the square of the distance. I
wrote unclearly here, assuming the oven to be set for baking and the
stone high up in the oven.

You're, of course, correct.

Pastorio
 
"Bob (this one)" wrote:
>
> Kenneth wrote:
> > On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 01:25:45 -0500, "Bob (this one)" <"Bob
> > "@nospam.com> wrote:
> >
> >>The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting
> >>because it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.
> >>
> >>Pastorio
> >
> > Hi Bob,
> >
> > With respect, you are wrong on this one...
> >
> > I did it for years and easily had the stone 150F (carefully
> > measured) hotter than the highest air temperature of the
> > oven.
>
> Apologies; I wasn't very clear when I wrote the above. I was assuming
> that oven was set on baking and the stone would be in the center of the
> oven or closer to the top element, several inches away from the lower
> element.
>
> Proximity to the element is important for heating the stone over air
> temperature. Thanks for your observation.
>
> Pastorio

The pizza stone was (and is) on the rack in the very bottom position of
the oven, perhaps an inch above the bake coil. This is the position that
it remains in full time, with 0-2 additional racks above depending on
what I'm baking.

It's a convection oven, but I left it in regular mode for the test.
Presumably convection would reduce the chances of pizza stone overshoot.
At any rate I did not observe any overshoot in a couple hours of
operation.

My assessment is that while it might be possible to get an overshoot, it
likely would take too much time for it to be a factor under normal home
use. If you're baking pizza or bread all day perhaps, but probably not
if you're just running two pizzas through for dinner.

Pete C.
 
On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:09:42 GMT, "Pete C."
<[email protected]> wrote:

>My assessment is that while it might be possible to get an overshoot, it
>likely would take too much time for it to be a factor under normal home
>use. If you're baking pizza or bread all day perhaps, but probably not
>if you're just running two pizzas through for dinner.
>
>Pete C.

Hi Pete,

I certainly would not presume to tell you what happens in
your own oven, but I can tell what happened in mine.

I am curious though...

How did you measure the temperature of the stone when you
experimented?

Thanks,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."
 
Doug Kanter wrote:
> "Sheldon" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >
> > Bill wrote:
> >>
> >> check out one of these pizza stones...
> >> http://ww2.williams-sonoma.com/cat/...0m1|15|0||||||pizza&gids=sku1242981&cmsrc=sch
> >
> > The text is hipocritical:
> >
> > "dense ceramic holds heat exceptionally well
> > "the ceramic is porous"
> >
> > Hmmm... which is it?
>
> explain why "holds heat" excludes "porous".

Never learned to read writing, eh... porous excludes dense... oh, dense
one.
 
"Kenneth" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:09:42 GMT, "Pete C."
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>My assessment is that while it might be possible to get an overshoot, it
>>likely would take too much time for it to be a factor under normal home
>>use. If you're baking pizza or bread all day perhaps, but probably not
>>if you're just running two pizzas through for dinner.
>>
>>Pete C.
>
> Hi Pete,
>
> I certainly would not presume to tell you what happens in
> your own oven, but I can tell what happened in mine.
>
> I am curious though...
>
> How did you measure the temperature of the stone when you
> experimented?
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Kenneth

Certainly I will not answer for Kenneth, but I take the temperature of my
stone with a infrared sensor. Point and click.
Dee Dee
 
On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 12:13:56 -0500, "Dee Randall"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>
>Certainly I will not answer for Kenneth, but I take the temperature of my
>stone with a infrared sensor. Point and click.
>Dee Dee
>

Hi Dee,

I was not asking myself the question...<g>

Because I saw such a dramatic temperature differential for
years, I am a bit surprised when others don't.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."
 
"Kenneth" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:p[email protected]...
> On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 12:13:56 -0500, "Dee Randall"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>>Certainly I will not answer for Kenneth, but I take the temperature of my
>>stone with a infrared sensor. Point and click.
>>Dee Dee
>>
>
> Hi Dee,
>
> I was not asking myself the question...<g>

Yes, I know, I screwed up -- LOL.
>
> Because I saw such a dramatic temperature differential for
> years, I am a bit surprised when others don't.
Kenneth

"You can lead to the water, but you can't make 'em drink"
Dee Dee
 
Kenneth wrote:
>
> On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:09:42 GMT, "Pete C."
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >My assessment is that while it might be possible to get an overshoot, it
> >likely would take too much time for it to be a factor under normal home
> >use. If you're baking pizza or bread all day perhaps, but probably not
> >if you're just running two pizzas through for dinner.
> >
> >Pete C.
>
> Hi Pete,
>
> I certainly would not presume to tell you what happens in
> your own oven, but I can tell what happened in mine.
>
> I am curious though...
>
> How did you measure the temperature of the stone when you
> experimented?
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Kenneth
>
> If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

As noted previously, I used a Fluke 87 multimeter with TK80 thermocouple
adapter to measure the ambient oven temperature (I hung the thermocouple
near the top of the oven) and an IR thermometer to check the surface
temp of the pizza stone. Both instruments read within 1 degree of each
other at the start and both settled in within +/- 5 degrees after the
preheat (that variation largely due to opening the oven door to shoot
the IR readings).

Pete C.
 
Sheldon wrote:
> Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
> > "Bob (this one)" <"Bob "@nospam.com> wrote in message
> > >
> > > The bottom-heating process won't get the stone above oven setting because
> > > it's relying on the air temp to do the heating.
> > >
> > > Pastorio
> >
> > Not rue. There will also be infrared heating from electric elements ora
> > broiler element.
> >
> > Three ways to heat. Conduction, convection, radiation.
>
> Precisely. But with radiation heat transfer proximity is of primary
> importance, typical home ovens are not constructed to take advantage of
> radiation heat transfer.

That's really not so true. The bit about proximity being of primary
importance in radiative heat transfer that is. What matters is the
energy that is incident on the stone. Now, admittedly the further the
stone is from the source, the more of the energy from the source that
will be incident on the walls of the oven rather than the stone. But
there's still quite a large portion of that energy that falls onto the
stone, and that won't be effected by distance (well, ok, ignoring the
air effects, but those'll be quite trivial.) Plus, the oven as a whole
is a pretty fair approximation of a blackbody, so most of the energy
that hits the walls will be reemitted too and eventually hit the stone.
Really, proximity is a very minor matter in this case. I recommend
looking up the Stefan-Boltzmann law and reading up on how radiative
heat transfer actually works.

>With commercial baking ovens the heating
> elements are typically situated intimately proximate to the oven's
> brickwork, often set within slots or even through holes in the brick,
> whereas it is via radiation that the bricks actually become signicantly
> hotter than the oven chamber because then the oven chamber is heated
> via conduction directly from the bricks rather than directly from the
> elements. With a commecial oven the bricks are actually part and
> parcel of the heating elements, essentially the bricks *are* the
> heating elements. However, pizza stones added to a residential oven
> cannot be situated so they can take advange of radiation heat transfer
> to any meaningful degree, and in fact they tend to hinder the oven's
> normal convection, even with forced convection ovens. And of course
> residential elements are not nearly powerful enough, or configured
> properly, to transfer meaningful thermal energy to slabs of stone. And
> the fact that they take so long to heat (stone is a very good good
> insulator precisely because it's a very poor conductor) is significant
> in that once cooled they do not recover well, especially via
> conduction. And stone can in fact be cooled remarkably rapidly.

This is also really terribly true. In fact, it's pretty much the
opposite of true and one of the main advantages of a stone. You're
right, it is a poor conductor, but that helps explain why it's slow to
cool down.

> In
> fact a slab of stone can be lava flow hot on one side and
> simultaniously be stone cold on the other (again, stone is a lousy
> conductor), which is why NASA uses ceramic tiles for space ship reentry

Comparing pizza stones to HRSI tiles is such an apples to oranges
comparison that I'm a bit amazed that anyone would make it. HRSI is
made from low-density silicon fibers, pizza stones are made from ...
rock. HRSI has many properties which are benificial to the extreme
environments involved in reentry. Pizza stones ... do not.

> and which is *precisely* why pizza stones are essentially worthless.
> Imagine, idiots are paying $30 for 40¢ worth of fire brick, just to
> convince only themselves that they know about baking. And then the
> imbecilic cooking supply ads (written probably by moronic restaurant
> critic types who never actually cooked anytrhing) claim "porous" and
> "dense"... which is it, can't be both. The very same idiot restaurant
> critics who write prattle like the perfectly rare steak arrived at the
> table steaming hot. duh
>
> http://www.efunda.com/formulae/heat_transfer/home/overview.cfm

That site doesn't do one darned thing to support your case.

--
Ernest
 
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