Pizza Stone Shattered

Fire hot - stone cold - kaboom!

After 10 years, it was time for a new one!

Michael

50 years? You must have some Scottish blood in ya! Ha! Ha!

I use my plate setter legs up, some copper pipe on the plate setter to elevate the pizza stone, I haven't had any problems.

Michael

Get a BGE stone. It will last.

That stone doesn't look too thick, so it probably just couldn't stand the intense heat from a direct fire. What brand was it? Pampered Chef stones are known to do this. Get a heavy stone like BGE sells. I doubt there is anything you can reasonably do to prevent a stone from busting if it just isn't made to take this kind of heat.

I had a Pampered Chef that did that. It did fine for almost a year until I hit it with a burrito coated in butter. I guess the cold butter was just too much for it. Mine split perfectly right down the center.

From here that looks like a pampered chef pizza stone and they just can't take the heat of a high temp BGE. Dozens on the forum have had the same experience.

...it just isn't worth messing around with anything other than a BGE Pizza Stone. I've accidentally spiked my pizza cooks to over 700 degrees even with no problems...that would have put the lump temp in the 1400 degree plus range or something like that...

Keep On Eggin'

Get the BGE stone and keep the pieces for small indirect cooks alongside direct ones

I've got a PC really thin stone I use for pizzas. So far I've not had any problems. I go platesetter legs down, couple of firebricks, rack and then pizza stone. I think the key is to let it warm and cool very slowly. I also don't go much above 400. I'm sure it go at some point, then I'll get a BGE, but until then, this has seemed to work well for me...and I usually do at least 2-3 pizzas, one after the other when I cook them.

There may be some ceramics engineers out there who might dispute this thought. I don't think a given ceramic is more or less tolerant of high heat. It's really the ability to withstand differentials of temperatures; it's the cooling and heating that's hard on the stone or any ceramic. I've worked for 35 years with incinerators, and it's pretty much a rule in the business that the life of the refractory firebrick is determined by the number of times you cool the unit off and how patient the staff is in cooling it or bringing it back up. I have a BGE stone and it seems pretty robust, thick. However, I'd still be very hesitant to plop anything on it with a lot of moisture. I'd avoid the direct heat (use a PS, but it appears they're same material?) and don't throw a cold stone on a hot fire direct. I don't know if these ceramics will take moisture, but I'd also never let it sit out in the rain; any moisture, no matter how little, that gets in will want out...fast!

It's refractory ceramics. All ceramics aren't the same.

There's little or no risk of thermal shock with the BGE ceramics

Pyrex ( old TRUE Pyrex) is actually clear ceramic and engineered specifically to be thermally shcok resistant

in fact, glass stove tops are ceramic, and there is no issue with thermal shock. They are designed to withstand high heat and then the sudden shock of water from a boil over