Baking Stone, Lower AND Upper

I have a 3/4" Fibrament Baking Stone which has done well for my needs in my electric oven all these years. I was wondering if anyone has ever tried placing a second stone on a rack above the bread when baking. Resulting in a sandwich effect with a stone on the bottom to hold the bread and one above the bread, resulting in a stone heating chamber if you will? If so, what were the results on your bread baking?

I have two slabs of granite in my electric oven, and I bake bread on both of them (I can do up to six at a time). I find that the loaves that are initially loaded onto the lower shelf (and thus have the other stone above them) have better spring and 'ears', at least sometimes. I think this is because the upper stone is a little too close to the upper element which, if it is on at all in the first twenty minutes of the bake, can cause the top crust to set before the loaf has finished expanding. I'm not sure if the upper stone protects the loaves on the lower shelf from this effect, or if they are simply further away from the top oven element. It's not a dramatic difference anyway and loaves on both shelves seem to turn out fine most of the time!

I have two basalt slabs that span the full width of the oven and go 12 inches deep. With one upper and one lower deck it seems the upper works best. The lower deck seems to be cooler but that's just observation and seems to make sense if you consider heat rises,and imagine that this all depends on oven type and stone size and location on the rack but just to answer this is how things seem to work for this rig :)

I have a rectangular Fibrament stone on the bottom and the round Fibrament stone designed for grill use above it for my gas oven. I am not sure, but I think that bread does not brown as fast until I turn the convection fan on halfway through the bake. This may result in better rise and a delayed setting of the crust like Lazy Loafer indicated. I think that the upper stone limits air circulation between stones and directs air around the outsides of the oven. This in turn limits convective heat transfer to the top of the loaves.

I mostly started doing it because it seemed like a good idea. However, I have not done a real comparison to see if the results are better with or without.

It sounds as though there is no real noticeable difference in the outcome of the bread when using two stones.

To put an upper stone to serve as a roof (after reading this again). ,it looks like most replies here explain how folks use their upper stone as a second deck and so the feedback is not really directed to your original question. You can at least consider the feedback to some degree but creating a heat chamber, I don't think at least from experience that my lower loaves benefit from the fact that they are more enclosed in fact as mentioned the upper deck,seems to work better. I always get a better result from the loaves that bake on top. Of you do plan to make a roof, the best thing would be to use it as another deck :\

kendalm, correct, I was thinking of the two stones forming a heat chamber, and you pretty much answered my question on such an arrangement.

electric oven with one below to bake on and one above to supply heat to the top of the loaf. There is huge difference using 1 stone, so if you nave 2 stones then use them. Like Alton Brown I leave them there all the time for all uses besides baking. One stone is inferior = period- no question about that. Just make sure you give the stones 20 minutes more time after the oven cones to temperature because that is exactly how long they lag the oven temperature according to my IR Thermometer and I have the same stones you do. Make sure to use Mega Steam too.

Happy baking

to bake bread in the past 6-7 years. They (1', rectangular) help maintaining steady oven temperatures and my loaves are evenly browned. Love the dual-stone set up.

Yippee

Okay, now I'm getting somewhere on the two stone combination. Thanks dabrownman on the stone heating info. I don't have an IR thermometer, so your 20 minute additional time is something I always wondered about. Good info to know. Yippee, thank you for confirming the dual stone set-up also. I think I can justify the second purchase now!