Countertop granite for a baking stone?

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Dunross on

I've got a nice sized piece of 1/4" aluminum plate in my oven that I've been using for pizza that works well.

Lately though I've wanted a proper stone for bread baking.  I've been considering ordering a custom sized Fibrament stone, but a little while ago I came across a post from several years ago where someone mentioned using a scrap piece of granite countertop as a baking stone - bottom (rough) side up.  There wasn't any follow-up though so I'm wondering if this is really a good idea?

It seems to me a 3cm thick granite slab ought to be oven temperature stable, but that's just thinking.  Anyone know from experience?

 

 

I think granite might be subject to thermal shock and so it's not a good idea to use in the oven, especially if you steam.

Dunross that baker on TFL is Alfanso, he purchased at a great price a piece of granite from a counter top company that he uses to great effect to bake on.  He’s had it for many years and I don’t believe he has had any problems whatsoever with it at all.  You should be able to buy a good sized one for relatively little money.  If I was looking for a baking stone that is exactly what I would do.

Benny

I was thinking of marble anyway, lol.  I've a pastry piece.  I think that's as safe, though, right?  Not that I would use this as I bought it for dedicated pastry work. I should have scrounged. Expensive!  

left on first day: March 2017.  right after a few hundred bakes: Feb 2022

  

No cracks, minor staining, which is natural, smooth polished side up.  ~3/4" thick with a small space on each of the four sides.  The biggest problem is that it is heavy to remove and replace back into the oven, if you wish to do so.

So interesting to see the then and now pics.

What are the dimensions of your stone, trying to figure out how long your baguettes can be and how strong your shelf is?

Also, how do you steam?

-Jon

Jon,

The stone is approximately 14"/36cm deep x 21"/53cm wide leaving about an inch in each of the 4 sides for air and steam circulation.

Steaming: A rolled up tea or terry towel in a loaf pan half filled with boiling water.  Also a large baking pan filled with what is called lava rocks, which are available at many home and garden or BBQ stores.  To this larger pan, which lives in the oven, I add 2 cups of boiling water just after the bread is loaded.  Both pans sit on the oven rack below the baking deck. 

There is plenty of "evidence" on TFL about Sylvia's Steaming Towels as well as lava rocks in baking pans.

Alan

Got my new stone.  A beautiful piece of granite. 

I wiped it with a damp cloth to show the grain better so it's a couple of shades lighter than it appears. Unfortunately I had to compress the photo file a bit to get it under the board file size limits so now the grain is hard to see! Oh well.

Wish I could say it only cost me $20!  Unfortunately the local stone dealers are now well aware of the value of their scrap pieces for baking and pastry making stones as well as cutting boards.  I phoned three different local dealers and they were all about the same with the cheapest also being the furthest away so I'd have spent more in gas getting it than I would have saved.  Went with a fellow who is only about five miles from my home.  They do their own stone cutting so had no problem getting what I wanted. Ended up costing me what a custom cut Firbrament stone would have cost (without the added shipping charges), but after looking at all of their various pieces of scrap granite I was in love with it so went for it.  Got it sized to my oven 16"x22" which leaves just over 1" of clearance on all four sides.  As you might expect for a 3cm thick piece of granite of that size it is heavy. My oven rack doesn't seem to have any problem supporting it though.

I gave it a good scrubbing yesterday and today I'll heat it to 500f for an hour or so to see if anything burns off.  I don't think anything will, but it's a precaution.  I'm not going to seal it with anything.  A baking stone will develop a patina over time which is a good thing. I am really looking forward to seeing what my pizza crusts will come out like and have already found a likely sounding pita recipe.

There's a nice little sparkle to the stone when the light is at the right angle.

 

$20, are you kidding me? I just picked up a slab of custom cut quartz 25"x18"x3/4" for $250 a few days ago. One place wanted $500 and the other one wanted $300 so I went with the cheapest for $250. The price was the same for granite and quartz, but I wanted quartz for about 20% lighter. Mine will be used as a dough board, not in the oven. 

Heated the new stone at 500f for an hour and a half night before last then allowed it to cool without opening the door. I turned the oven off at 8:30pm. The next morning at 6:30am when I went into the kitchen to make breakfast I put my hand on it to find it still noticeably warm ten hours later. Excellent heat retention!

The stone appears exactly the same now as it did before I heated it. Fit for purpose.

 Pizza tonight!

If you are serious about getting a smooth slab of granite for your oven, I suggest you locate the people who do the actual granite cutting and edging for kitchen contractors in your local area. They are typically small shops that do it. Those people cut out the holes for sinks (probably right-size for an oven!) and shape the edges of those counters in addition to cutting counters to shape and size. They have the tooling to make a right-size granite slab for your oven. They may have a big stack of leftover sink cutouts or other scrap granite to use. 

There are kitchen counter stores and also huge granite slab yards with large granite slabs, etc., but they are different than the people who do the cutting. Homeowners who have granite counters installed rarely meet the cutters or know that they exist. 

FYI, I have been to granite slab yards, asked politely, and been given granite scraps in irregular shapes (with sharp edges). Those scraps are just costly trash to the large granite yards. (The imposition is more about value of someone's time to find the scraps than it is about the value of the scraps themselves.) I use those granite scraps in the garage, not for baking. 

By the way, those granite scraps have some kind of nylon or plastic web fused on the back. (My hunch is that it is there to retain a broken piece if it should crack off during shipment.) You may want to remove the nylon before using it in an oven. A random orbital sander or a belt sander should do the job. Ask the granite cutter for advice.

 

I was actually thinking about getting a piece of stone to replace my extra-large cutting board for dough work. Sorry for a little off topic here but it is stone related, so I figure why not ask. Any suggestion for the stone type? I am looking for a local stone mill to visit soon but I would like to know more info before I go there. Thanks. 

I have some inch-and-an-eighth soapstone that was left over from countertop fabrication, and it has worked fine as a baking stone for almost a decade.  Gets very hot.  I mainly use it to add thermal mass to the oven rather than baking directly on it, though.

One innovation: the stonecutter fabricated the baking stone as two separate rectangular pieces.  That makes it easier take out of the oven and put back in.

Please note that I was not talking about using this stone to bake, I will use it to work on a dough like doing a slap and fold, kneading, dividing, shaping, etc. Are you saying soapstone is good for this purpose? How is soapstone compared to other options like quartz, marble, granite, etc. for smoothness and dough friendliness? 

Sorry!  That should have been attached to the previous question!

I don't know that it's worth getting a stone just for slapping dough on.  I usually use a large plastic cutting board, lightly floured.

Years back when I did pastry I had a marble board that I could refrigerate to get cold for purposes of keeping pastry cold, and it had a polished surface.  Possibly that would work better, but hopefully there are others here who have more wisdom on that.

…so it would probably make a great pizza/bread stone. Soapstone is non-porous and non-reactive which is why your chemistry lab benches were made of it. Locally, soapstone for counters generally comes in 3 cm thicknesses, so I think it would make a great, beefy (and heavy) hearthstone. It’s relatively soft as rock goes so you can smooth it with regular sand paper. Might be easier to come by on the East Coast as I’m told it’s more commonly requested in those markets.

@Dunross,   One more thing to keep in mind:  Avoid any pieces of marble with epoxy fillers. They will out-gas when baked.  Inspect the piece while viewing at a shallow angle.  The cutter/dealer should also be able to easily spot a filler.

I've purchased a 12" x 24" natural black granite polished floor tile.  I forget the exact price, but maybe $6-something, a few years ago. It's about 1/4" thick.

 I got it at a big-box flooring store - that is, one of those big box stores dedicated to just flooring. I forgot the name, and it's out of business, but I suppose there are more stores of that kind.  If not, Lowes/Menards/HomeDepot have big flooring departments.

HTH.

Thanks Dave for the info. I will be stopping by a stone mill this weekend that is supposedly have different stone types for me to check out. Ideally I would want something that is 25"x20"xsomething, it would be a pretty substantial piece of stone that is dedicated for dough work, and I don't mind to carry it back and forth for storage and to put on the table. My countertops are always dirty so I don't feel like cleaning and sanitizing the surfaces every time I want to put a piece of dough on it so I have been using a piece of very large chopping/serving board for that purpose. Cost is not an issue as this is kind of a "lifetime" investment so whatever it may cost so be it. Based on what I have been reading, quartz might be on top of my list to get for a balance of weight and smoothness. 

This thread has evolved into two separate topics:

  • One is about using countertop material (e.g., granite) as a baking stone in an oven.
  • The other is about using countertop material as a work surface for kneading dough, etc.

Countertop Materials:

Some countertop materials are manufactured in factories. Examples include Corian and quartz. Quartz counters are 80-90% ground-up quartz with 10-20% binder made from polymers, resins, and/or other plastics. (Keep in mind that the store-bought "baking stones" that I use in my oven are also manufactured - they are molded in a machine. They appear to be made of some kind of baked clay. I have no idea what binders they add, if any.) 

Other countertop materials come from huge rocks that are sliced in countertop-size slabs. Examples include granite and marble. Sure, those flat surfaces are mostly polished stone, but imperfections (small holes and gaps) are filled with polymers/resins/plastics. Furthermore, those rock materials are porous. Counters made from them should be sealed periodically. The sealers use polymers/resins/plastics. If you don't seal your natural stone counters (e.g., granite, marble), liquids can soak in. An oil stain that soaks into a poorly sealed granite counter is nearly impossible to remove.

My point is that we don't know how these countertop materials behave in hot ovens. Sometimes I preheat my oven to 500-550 F (260-288 C). Do those countertop materials release dangerous chemicals at those temperatures? Could chemicals get into my bread and harm my family?
-> Stated another way: Which countertop materials are food safe at oven temperatures? 
-> I have no idea, but it would be important to know.

Countertop Materials as a Portable Work Surface: 

We have granite counters and are very pleased with them. They are great for making bread. Because granite counters are flat and hard, they clean up easily with a bench scraper and a quick wipe. We reseal them every year just before the holidays, when is when they get the heaviest use. We would have been equally happy with any similar hard surface (e.g. quartz), as long as it can withstand the sharp corner of a bench scraper without scratching. We do not recommend Corian because it collects scratches over time. 

Countertop materials are basically rocks. They are very heavy, like rocks.
-> If you are thinking about buying one to use as a portable work surface, be sure you know how much it will weigh before you buy or order it.

We had "trivets" made in various sizes from the leftover pieces of our granite counters. Some are used as trivets, and some are sized to serve as bases for kitchen appliances - the slow cooker, bread machine, etc. Our largest granite "trivet" is 14 x 16 inches (~36 x 41 cm).
-> That 14x16 inch "trivet" weighs more than 18 pounds ( > 8 kilos ). I just weighed it. If you want anything larger, consider that. 

 

Thanks for the feedback. I think quartz is on top of my list as a work surface material. I just stopped by a local place earlier today to check them out, dang I was in a sticker shock. as they wanted $500 for a slab of either quartz or granite, the price of the raw material was much cheaper, the premium was mostly for labor. The polished granite was exceptionally beautiful and if I can find a cheaper source then I might pick it over quartz, but I hate to have to seal it every so often. Nonetheless I plan to stop by a few more places to find a better price. 

If I were going to upgrade a metal plate for making Pizza, I would upgrade from aluminum to steel. Steel holds the heat better, and you'll get amazing crusts.