Buy a pizza stone or unglazed quarry tiles?

Get the Pampered Chef circular stone

Have a couple of them and they're awesome

i've got the old stone that you link. every review i read had it ranked as one of the top stones. i use it for pizza and bread all the time. works great.

i've never tried the unglazed tile option.

I looked a few years back for unglazed tile. They're harder to find in this area of the country than most. Houses here don't frequently sport the raw terracotta floor look.

With that said, we moved to using cast iron for pizza. Just a standard 12" lodge skillet. Oven @500F, heat the skillet stove top. Drop pressed out dough into skillet, assemble the rest of the pizza quickly. I switch the oven to broil and put the pie in mid-rack. ~5 minutes later to crispy, perfectly cooked pizza. Pizza loves very high heat and the cast iron allows you to get results unobtainable from the stones. Plus it's a multi-tasker.

With quarry tiles, you can stack them to simulate a brick oven as in the picture below.



I would add a row on the rack above the pizza to enclose the cooking area. Use the highest heat your oven can reach and preheat for 45-60 minutes.

If you have it in your budget, get one of these.



Hearthkit Oven Insert

They're discontinued now, so the last of the inventory is now being sold on eBay. I have one and it is the king of baking stones. Recommended by Peter Reinhart, author of "American Pie".

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With quarry tiles, you can stack them to simulate a brick oven as in the picture below.

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Impressive. I'm still a fan of the results I get from my cast iron skillet, but that quarry setup is pretty cool. Reinhart knows a thing or two about bread.

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None of the above.
Cast Iron Gridle.

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I've used the griddle as well. I like the skillet because you get a surrounding heat from the skillet walls as well as from the bottom.

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From all I've read the porosity is important.

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That seems to the the prevailing wisdom. I find super high heat is more important than the stones porosity. I've owned many stones, still have one. I've also baked on the back of a shallow terracota planter saucer


at 500 degrees, I question how much absorbing a stone will do. I'm not a scientist, but I'd think all moisture will be forced away from such a hot surface in the form of vapor.

I use the Pampered chef round stone...... before I put the dough on it I sprinkle it with some black pepper and corn flour

Some tiles contain lead.

Don't know if they are food safe

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Some tiles contain lead.

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That's the glazed tiles. Make sure you get UN-glazed tiles.