So some people swear by putting a pizza or baking stone at the base of their oven to even out the hot spots and help maintain temperature by decreasing huge fluctuations in temperature in their oven for baking. I know some people say it really has excelled their baking or helped by having the extra mass in there. Does anyone have experience with this? Does it actually help with hot spots or help keep the oven temp from dropping really low when putting multiple batches of baked goods into the oven at once? Would be very interested to hear your experience. Thanks!
4
-
3I mean.... yes. You've apparently already read people saying that it's useful.... did you suppose they were lying? What information do you expect from answers to this question that you haven't already found from other resources?– SneftelCommented Aug 30, 2023 at 10:14
-
to elaborate on what @Sneftel said above, you asked another question about your oven a few hours ago, and was given exactly this advice in the answer. Do you think the people who answered you before changed their minds? Do you want experimental evidence? What leads you do doubt?– EstherCommented Aug 30, 2023 at 14:28
-
1It looks like this might actually be something we've answered previously - cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/118049/… I'll leave it to y'all to determine if you want to close it. :)– CatijaCommented Aug 30, 2023 at 15:10
-
Does this answer your question? Is smoothing out an oven's on/off cycling possible with a pizza stone?– EcnerwalCommented Aug 30, 2023 at 17:19
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
I've heard this quite frequently but I've never seen someone test it until I poked around after seeing your question - I found this blog from 2011 where someone tested their oven temperature stability and how quickly the oven returns to temp after being open for a minute and it looks like it helps some, but maybe not as much as claims make it seem.
- Based on the tests it reduced the temperature fluxuations of the tester's closed oven from about 25F to about 15F.
- It does not seem to reduce the time to return to temperature after opening the door, though it may reduce the temperature spike caused by the oven overshooting the target temperature.
- It makes your pre-heating time take longer, which for me is something I am concerned about since I frequently make cookies and forget to turn the oven on.
So I'd guess how valuable it is likely depends on your oven (does it fluctuate in temperature a lot or not?) and the sorts of things you're cooking. If you have stuff you're really needing to cook at a very specific temperature, it may be more impactful than if you're roasting a big chunk of meat for several hours.
One thing I'll note is that they seem to be using a thin (1/2 inch thick) pizza stone for this test. Many high-end pizza stones are up to 1.5 inches thick, so the variation of the temperatures would likely be less as you add more thermal mass.
While I'm not sure they're duplicates, there are some related posts here on Seasoned Advice:
