For years I used a Fibrament-D baking stone for baking all my bread. But a few months ago, for reasons I still don’t understand, it started taking forever to come to temperature and then wouldn’t hold it. It was a pisser, to say the least. I was embarrassed to share pictures of my bread because it had that classic look of bread that had been baked in an environment where the ambient temperature was greater than the baking surface. Ugh!

Here’s a rough idea of that effect:

What happens when the ambient temperature is higher than the surface is that the sides and the top bake faster than the bottom. The crust also sets too fast and what you get is an elliptical loaf that is also quite dense.

After a few bakes trying to do different things, I finally trashed my stone and started baking my boules and batards in a Dutch oven. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it did limit the size of the loaves I could bake. I really prefer baking on an open surface.

So, since Christmas was coming up, I did some research and asked Santa for a baking steel; specifically, the ThermiChef XL. After using it for the first time last week, I exclaimed, “Damn! I probably should’ve just used a baking steel from the get-go!” But looking back on my original decision to use a stone, I admit that I got caught up in the romance of baking on a stone surface. I had wanted to model my baking on baking in a hearth oven. And it worked great for a while, but I’m really at a loss as to why my stone stopped performing.

But it doesn’t matter now. The baking steel is so much more efficient. It comes to temperature much quicker, and as I got the 1/4″ thick steel, it retains heat much more efficiently. But most importantly, based on what I’ve seen thus far, it heat transfer seems to be much better than my old stone, which would cool down at the spots where the dough would make contact. What I’m finding with the steel is that the bottoms of my loaves are much more solid compared to baking on the stone.

Another advantage with the steel is that it heats up a lot quicker than the stone. Even though the manufacturer recommends heating it for an hour before baking, I found that it comes to a stable temperature in half that time. My stone usually took well over an hour to come to temperature. Also, the steel comes back to temperature after a bake much quicker – like 10-15 minutes after a batch, so if I am doing more than a batch, my baking cycles are now much faster.

Finally, at 16″ X 22″, the steel provides much more surface area than my old stone. Furthermore, it has straight sides, whereas my stone had sloping sides. With this new steel, I could easily bake 3-4 800g batards at once.

Yeah, baking with a steel is definitely a game-changer. I may just get another to go into my other oven so I can do two batches at once.