Complete failure to sleep

[unixronin]

And so, here I am was at 0600 on a Sunday morning, with a mug of Margaret's Hope Estate autumnal Darjeeling tea and a case of complete insomnia.  What falls to the attention of my sleepless eye this early morning?

(OK, so I didn't actually get this posted when I started writing it.)

Well, as previously discussed, we've recently moved from Hudson, NH to Merrimack, NH and a real house.  We're gradually getting the place in order and all our stuff organized.  In fact, the living room upstairs and the office/den I'm in now are getting almost presentable.  (Though actually, I just stopped typing and spent an hour rearranging things in here for the fourth time, moving the printer table next to the machine-room door.  Of course, it was only AFTER completing this that I realized I'd forgotten to switch my mug warmer on.  I need to go reheat my tea now.)

On the to-do list for today:  go look at Staples for bookshelves, go buy a chest freezer, put up bookshelves if we buy them, one more stop by Costco.  Bookshelves, if purchased, will enable us to finish organizing the office (I really need to think of a better-sounding name than that) and mostly finish organizing the living room, completion of which will most likely have to wait on retrieving my Pioneer stereo rack from North Carolina (assuming it hasn't rotted into a pile of crumbling particle board by now from extended exposure to the North Carolina elements).  The replacement A/V receiver is here, the replacement DVD player is on the way (long-time readers may remember the receiver and DVD player committed murder-suicide about two years ago), the replacement TV has been ordered (we decided to go with the Westinghouse LVM-42W2).  We need to do something about the dining room chairs;  I think I can come up with a way to rework them by fully boxing in the seat frame with something like 3/8" birch ply, top and bottom, that'll actually give them some structural stiffness.  I'll have to make templates for the exact shape of the plates that would be required, and make six of each.

Then there's the oven.  For some time now, we've been using a layer of ceramic tiles in the bottom of the oven to increase the thermal mass.  It's supposed to be a Good Thing when baking.  Previously, we've used 6"x6" unglazed terracotta tile.  However, when I measured this oven, I discovered it to be almost exactly 24"x16", and realized that if I could find 8"x8" tiles, I could have a complete layer of tile front to back and side to side on the first rack, and have room to cook two pizzas at once without risk of them sagging off the sides of the tiles.  I did, in fact, find 8"x8" tiles, which were such a close fit that I had to machine notches into the edges of two of the six tiles with a Dremel tool and a tungsten carbide cutter in order to get clearance to fit them in.

Just like this, in fact.

Turns out this actually isn't such a hot idea.  Or, more to the point, it's a very hot idea.  Rather too hot, in fact.  Completely partitioning the oven right above the element, on the first rack, does indeed produce a whole-oven-size flat cooking surface for pizzas, yes ... but it also completely blocks off all radiant and convective heating from the element to the oven.  In fact, almost the only heating of the oven as a whole is by re-radiation from the tiles.  (Well, OK, there's a little bit of convection behind the back of the rack.  But not much.)  So this means that flat ceramic cooking surface is searingly hot, while the oven above it is relatively cool... and things don't cook properly.  We made pizza Friday night; it was simultaneously overcooked and undercooked -- the toppings weren't fully done and the cheese wasn't browned, but the bottom of the crust was carbonized to a depth of about an eighth of an inch.  It was slightly too much like eating Kingsford's charcoal.

So my painstakingly notched tiles came back out, and now there's a 16"x16" pizza-cooking surface of four tiles with a four-inch gap for convection either side.  We'll see whether that works better.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Whole list of pizza sheets, some stone.

We've had, I think, three pizza stones now. Two of them cracked on the first or second use. The third lasted longer before it, too, cracked across the middle. The ceramic tiles just go on forever until they're so soaked with grease drippings you can't get them clean anymore. Then, at six bucks a box, you throw them away and lay the second half of the box in the oven.

I also would like to point out that those tiles should not contain lead but it is not unknown for it to occur in them. Some countries don't really give a damn and allow lead oxide in ceramic mugs and metallic lead in brass.

That's a good point. That may be one reason why unglazed terracotta tile is the usual recommendation.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Ok, terra cotta should be ok. I think it's colored naturally or with iron oxide. If it's soaked in grease does that impart a bad taste to the pizza?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Not so you'd notice. Most of it burns off, but the tiles get blacker and blacker with char in the pores that you can't wash off.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

And last question. Why? I've made pizza on the rack, on a broil pan and on a cookie sheet and had good success. How does the pizza compare with the other ways to bake it?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Part of the answer is that the tiles increase the thermal mass of the oven, so that there's less of a loss of temperature when you open the oven. More consistent oven temperature means more consistent cooking, and in particular, sliding a pizza directly onto the hot tiles means a faster-cooked pizza with a better-cooked crust. (This still applies if you're putting the pizza on the tiles in a pizza pan.)

Even food that doesn't do directly on the tiles will cook more evenly because the temperature is more even. This is why many large commercial ovens are brick-lined. (See also tandoor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandoor).)

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Tandoor (http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Island/3012/page2.htm)

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