• Reply by Mike Nolan on January 25, 2012 at 5:27 pm
• 

How far back in the literature did you go?

I'm an engineer by training and look at some of the publications online every now and then, it seems like baking and other 'production' issues are not hot research topics. 50 years ago, there might have been more interest in such topics.

It sounds like a fascinating topic to me, but I'm not an academic needing to get published.

Some of the trade publications in the baking industry might be better sources, they're more interested in real-world issues.

The key question from a technical perspective probably would have to do with thermal transfer properties, ie, air-to-dough vs cold (initially )sheet metal-to-dough or hot surface (stone or other material)-to-dough.

And then the question would be, what is it you want to measure: How thick the bottom crust gets, how much caramelization there is, etc?

The professional bakers I know would probably want to know how many pizzas they can bake in an hour, because that translates into revenue. As a home baker, I'm more interested in knowing which one tastes better, a rather subjective measure.

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• Reply by kidpizza on January 26, 2012 at 12:55 pm
• 

ELARAINE:
Good morning. I know that COOK'S ILLUSRATED PUBLICATION wrote an article on this subject in 2010. I didn't read it however.
Contact them & ask how to get a copy of it. Perhaps one of our members maybe a subscriber & they have it in their booklets without realizing it. I hope one will weigh in on it too help you. One other thought. Contact the Manu. of these stone cooking wares I think they are known as "REFACTORY"S (sp)
They can direct you to a study if one exists. If all else fails I can put you in contact with Ms. Emily Buehler. She has a degree in food science & has written a scientic book on breads. She is associated with bread baker Peter Reinhart in So. Carolina.

I hope I was able to provide you with ideas today. Hopefully you will continue posting with us in the future. This way you can helps many of us in understanding more about baking science.

Good luck & enjoy the rest of the day.

~KIDPIZZA.

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• Reply by omaria on January 26, 2012 at 5:16 pm
• 

Elaraine, I love Kidpizza, so if he says that we should look at C.I. magazine, and I happen to have that, than I look .

Here is what I found ::Baking Stones simulate a brick oven in your home oven, absorbing and radiating intense,consistent heat to produce crisp, golden brown crusts on pizza, calzones and breads. Of the 5 stones we tested The Baker's catalogue Pizza baking stone by Old Stone Oven won out for being roomy but not cumbersome . For complete test result go to www.cooksillustrated.com/oct10

There you have it.

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• Reply by BakerIrene on January 26, 2012 at 8:31 pm
• 

My friends and I didn't publish the results of our testing. We were too busy eating...

One summer we built a proper brick oven on a metal-mesh frame, using firebrick, and plastered with a heavy layer of clay and chopped straw. It was big enough to take a 12x18 cookie sheet with room to spare around the edges, about 8" high inside. We heated it with burning wood, raked out the embers, and added the goods on cookie sheet or cake pans. We baked the same recipes of cake, pie, bread that we baked in a conventional oven.

For conventional, I prefer electric and my friends prefer gas, but the results are indistinguishable for a constant mixture being baked. The only difference I know of is that a 6-pie commercial range requires gas to maintain an even heat.

There is a MAJOR difference between the heat radiated by all surfaces inside the brick oven, compared to a conventional gas or electric oven. I personally do not think that a bottom stone can be similar, because the heat radiated from the top and sides of a brick oven makes most of the difference.

In fact, the person tending the fire got the oven up to 600F one day, and I volunteered to babysit the pies that had to be baked. They took 15 minutes instead of 40, but they were as well baked all the way through as they would have been with the oven at 350F. There were no burnt corners. I proceeded to conduct that baking session as if we had intended to fire the oven up that high--we baked pies for a few hours, then bread, and ended with many pans of coffee cake without burning anything.

And except for that one overstoked day, we used that oven for 10 days of baking every day, dissassembled it, and were able to reassemble and re-use the following summer. The baking time depended solely on how hot the oven was when food was added.

OK, we actually made arrangements to publish a cookbook with this baking information, but the boyfriend of one team member broke up with her, and his connection to a small publishing house disappeared. So we have tested recipes and notes about how wood-burning ovens work.

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• Reply by BakerIrene on January 29, 2012 at 4:28 pm
• 

I should add that the research was funded by friends who loved to eat but were too busy making lots of money working for companies such as Prime Computers. Those good engineers sensibly made the offer to provide the funds in return for good food.

We did some reading and then trial and error, also applying good engineering principles. The oven frame went through a few trials with the welders before the firebricks went on. The first clay cover didn't have straw mixed in, and cracked off as soon as the first fire was huilt inside.

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• Reply by omaria on January 29, 2012 at 10:32 pm
• 

Bakerirene, I don.t know any one in the publishing business , But I sure would buy your cookbook. Of course you would have to sign it for me. Would Snapfish be an option ?They will print anything and make it into a beautiful book.

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• Reply by skeptic7 on February 01, 2012 at 11:59 pm
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How did you tell if the food was cooked? Its amazing that you could bake at 600 degrees without burning the food. Did it taste better than a conventional oven for cakes and cookies? What did the food taste like?
This sounds like a wonderful experience! Did you just get bored and not rebuild the oven the third year?

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