Bread Science

The reason brick ovens produce bread with such wonderful crust is the way the heat is conveyed.  Instead of simply absorbing heat from the air inside the oven, the bread absorbs heat radiating from the bricks the oven is made out of.  One heats the oven enough to make the bricks hot, then the bread is put in.  This technique can be simulated by using a bread or pizza stone.  Such stones can be expensive, but they also limit the space for baking in your oven, if they do not cover a whole oven rack.  That is a problem for baking multiple loaves of bread.

Following advice given on the internet, we are experimenting with using stone tiles.  They must be "unglazed" so that there are no chemicals in the tile's finish to leach into the food.  We tried saltillo tiles first, which are cheap and made of clay, but they did not work well and broke easily.  Our next attempt was slate tiles.  At $1.50 each and needing less than two to cover an oven rack, they seem like a good deal.  But on their first use, we heard a popping noise as they heated up.  Later examination showed that they were breaking into layers:

The bottom two tiles were not used.  The top tile was used and broke into strata, as you can see.  So slate is not the perfect material.  But, man, was the crust good!