Is smoothing out an oven's on/off cycling possible with a pizza stone?
Will adding something like a pizza stone smooth out the highs and lows of an oven's cycling (the switching the element off and on)?
Best Answer
I've used pizza stones to even out fluctuations in two different ovens which had severe on/off temperature cycles. One oven was an older gas oven, and the other one an older electric oven. In both cases, installing the pizza stones did indeed lower the amount of temperature fluctuation in the oven; in the electric oven, fluctuations went from +/-45F to +/-20F, which helped a great deal with cooking times.
For this to work, the pizza stone needs to be sufficiently massive to act as a heat sink; each of the stones I used were over 15lbs. This will also cause the oven to take longer to heat up.
Pizza stones will also help even out random hot spots created by a bottom flame or element, but as @dbmag remarks, they won't do much, if anything, about top-to-bottom gradient.
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Can I just leave my pizza stone in the oven?
Yes. You can avoid a lot of hoisting and heaving by simply leaving them in the oven on a rack most of the time, where they act as what engineers call \u201cthermal ballast\u201d to help hold the oven temperature steady. This may add a few minutes to preheating times, but it will improve the steadiness of your oven's heat.Is a pizza stone worth buying?
Pizza stones are absolutely worth it, more affordable than steels and easy to work with. If you clean them properly and are careful not to drop them, they'll also last you a long time. The only real downside is that they're a bit unwieldy, lugging one around your kitchen is no one's favourite task.Is a baking stone the same as a pizza stone?
A pizza stone is a subset of what is commonly known as baking stones. The biggest difference is that a pizza stone is typically round, whereas a baking stone is rectangular. But essentially, a pizza stone is a baking stone. But its possible to use a rectangular stone for pizza if you choose.How thick should a pizza stone be?
How Thick Should a Pizza Stone Be? The short answer is as thick as possible. The thicker the pizza stone is, the more heat it's going to retain, and the better the heat distribution will be. Typically, a thick pizza stone is 1/2 to 1 inch thick.Smoothing PLA Prints with a Convection Oven
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Answer 2
It will go some way to reducing the temperature fluctuations, and is usually done to mitigate the sudden temperature drop caused by opening the oven door when making something that wants a high temperature like a pizza.
The consequences of the oven cycling on and off tend to be felt more in terms of placement within an oven; if the heating element is at the top of the oven, say, then food at the top is more exposed to periods of high temperature. That wouldn't be necessarily resolved using a stone.
The fact that this isn't a common practice for everyday cooking, whereas other techniques like putting food on the middle shelf or covering with foil are common, suggests that there's not much need for this. But if you suspect the cycles are causing you a problem then by all means give it a go.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Lachlan Ross, Ashok Sharma, Erik Mclean, Scott Webb