Pizza/Baking Stone

[Jeeves]

Thank you. Very much appreciated.

[hungryone]

My stone cracked (after much high heating on the grill) last week, and I sprang for the $40 rectangular model from Williams Sonoma.....for the simple fact of the lifetime guarantee. If the stone cracks, you can return it to the store for a replacement. Since I'm on my third stone in roughly 10 years, I thought the $40 would be a good investment. This stone has molded ridges on the bottom that act as feet; dunno if that will help or hurt its durability.

RE: dough, I'm a huge fan of wet-as-hell pizza dough, kneaded for a good 10 minutes in the KA....I prefer AP flour to bread flour, though 00 is nice when I can get it. Most of the time, I use half whole wheat and make enough for 6-8 crusts at a time; the stuff freezes beautifully. I've given up on rolling or stretching the dough for transfer directly from the peel--the dough is so wet that any shaping is an extreme challenge. Nowadays, I just roll it super-thin on parchment, then slide the parchment & pizza onto the stone. Pizz cooks off of the parchment in 2-3 minutes; you can either slide it off of the paper, or just let the paper brown around the edges. On the grill, I slide the paper out, as it burns in the 550+ heat of the gas grill.

[Low-N-Slow]

If you haven't, you should try the King Arthur Whole White Wheat flour. It's ground finer (or at least to an even grind) than the typical Graham whole red wheat flour, and has a completely different, milder flavor, more like regular flour. Recently, I was short on the King Arthur, and added some regular WW flour to make up the difference, about 60/40. Never again-- it tore while stretching, and wouldn't stay stretched.

The cheap baking stone from BB&B has a 10 year warranty, but I doubt it would be worth the trouble to make good on it. It also has a raised grid of ridges on the bottom.

[hungryone]

RE: regular WW tearing....WW doesn't hydrate as quickly & the gluten takes longer to develop than more refined flours. So try giving it a longer knead & rest, and voila, no tears.

[Low-N-Slow]

RE: regular WW tearing....WW doesn't hydrate as quickly & the gluten takes longer to develop than more refined flours. So try giving it a longer knead & rest, and voila, no tears.

That was after a 24 hour cold ferment and return to room temp. I also add 60 gm of VWG to about 400 gm flour.

[jodyrah]

I used to use a stone with good results. Now I grill them with better results. I use Todd English's dough recipe, adding a bit more flour and rapid rise yeast.