Pizza stone? Why do mine shatter?

[Tom]

I've broken several stones. In the oven unmolested except while hot, outside the oven subject to only the lightest touch. The last two never encountered water in any form.

Is it me or bad choices in product? None have been super duper premium.

[watchcwgo]

I dont have an answer to why, but I went through a handful before I gave up and got a baking steel. Wish I could have gone back in time and never spent the money on the stones, as the steel was worth every penny and then some.

[crumpton]

15" Full Round Cordierite Kiln Shelf - 5/8" Thick

plus they have other sizes.

[dgaddis]

Most baking stones are just too thin. Many have a high temp warning around 500 degrees, and they almost all advise against giving it any sort of thermal shock - aka getting the stone good and hot, and then putting something cold on it, like bread dough, or a pizza.

For pizza, a steel works WAY better. For bread, I don't like it, by the time the bread is done the bottom is burnt AF as the kids say.

The Big Green Egg stone has a great reputation - it's twice as thick as most stones, and is made for going in blasting hot grills - those grills can hit temps over 900*F easily. They're available in several sizes. I've got one, used it a lot, zero complaints other than it was pricey, I want to say I paid about $50 for it. Also, being so thick, it's heavy.

I bet that Kiln shelf Nick posted works great too, at a fraction the cost of the Big Green Egg pieces.

[rwsaunders]

We've had a 14.5" Emile Henry stone for at least 10-12 years...no issues. It's seen use in our double oven to temps around 500F, as well as outside on the Weber/Kettle Pizza setup at temps approaching 700F. If you don't want to pay $40-50, you can find them at TJMaxx from time to time. Nice product and easy to clean and maintain.

Smooth Pizza Stone



| Emile Henry USA




| Made In France

[Mark Kelly]

The key with pizza stones and hot ceramics generally is not to expect it to survive anything that places one surface in tension WRT the opposite surface: most ceramics won't survive even 0.2% tensile strain.

Basically anything that might cause a piece of wood to warp (eg one side being hotter or wetter than the other) will likely cause ceramic to shatter.

My pizza "stones" are more than a decade old and they originally cost about $2 each from the local tile shop, it's more about how you treat them than what product you use.

BTW if you are going to use a steel pizza mat use a chunk of stainless: stainless is notorious for poor heat transfer which is actually what you want in a pizza mat.

[lacy465]

Most baking stones are just too thin. Many have a high temp warning around 500 degrees, and they almost all advise against giving it any sort of thermal shock - aka getting the stone good and hot, and then putting something cold on it, like bread dough, or a pizza.

For pizza, a steel works WAY better. For bread, I don't like it, by the time the bread is done the bottom is burnt AF as the kids say.

The Big Green Egg stone has a great reputation - it's twice as thick as most stones, and is made for going in blasting hot grills - those grills can hit temps over 900*F easily. They're available in several sizes. I've got one, used it a lot, zero complaints other than it was pricey, I want to say I paid about $50 for it. Also, being so thick, it's heavy.

I bet that Kiln shelf Nick posted works great too, at a fraction the cost of the Big Green Egg pieces.

Agreed with you at some point.