First things first. As a rule, no matter what you use it for, you do not have to clean your pizza stones. Yes, that s it good not to clean a stone. Over time, you will notice stains and black spots on it. These are completely normal.
The reason for stains is the ingredients in your pizza stone or the ingredients on the crust. If your baking soda washes away in a few days, it is perfectly acceptable. However, if the solution that washes off is a mixture of baking soda and vinegar, then it is not acceptable and you should change it immediately. Vinegar will take away the flavor as well.
Another pizza stone cleaning mistake would be washing it with dish soap. Yes, dish soap does remove the grease from your stone, but it also removes the valuable microorganisms that live in it. If the microorganisms were left behind, they would grow and produce vinegar, a bad thing. Vinegar eats through stone, so be careful when washing it. Also, be sure to wipe the area you are cleaning before you put anything on it.
Crust cleaning can be tricky because it is not as easy to scrape burned bits out as it is when using your hands. When you want to scrape burnt bits from your pizza stones, warm your oven to near cooking temperature. Use a pastry brush to apply the hot oil to the exterior of the oven.
Scrap burnt pieces every time: Every time you bake, you end up with some burnt marks (this is called crust burn). However, there’s another way to deal with it. Simply apply to hot oil to the crust after you take it out from the oven. This will melt the hardened crust on your pizza stone, making it easier to scrape. Just make sure you don’t burn yourself!
Scrape dry: You might think that you can scrape dry pizza stones by hand, but this isn’t how to clean them. When your stone gets really wet, it’s too hard to scrape it without getting burnt. So, what you want to do is get it really dry (without being too wet), then rub it with a dry towel until the outer surface is completely dry. Next, use water (not hot) to rinse off the stone. Afterwards, dry the stone with a soft cloth and store it in a sealed container to prevent any bacteria from growing.
Scrub with a pizza stone brush: So, if scraping burnt bits seems like too much work, then you might want to try using a pizza stone brush. These things are specifically designed to make it easy to scrub away burnt food particles. They come in a variety of different shapes and sizes, so you’ll have plenty of choice. Some of them even come with tiny suction cups to help you make the best cleaning job possible. And just like the dry pizza stone, once you’ve wetted your pizza stones with warm water, scrub away all of the food residue. Just be sure to rinse it off quickly to avoid any damage to the stones.
Crack it open: A good way to remove those unsightly specks of crumb is to crack your stone open. Once you’ve got a nice big crack in your stone, go ahead and spray it down with hot sauce. The steam will help to dislodge all of those little bits that are stuck in there. Then, with your cold stone directly over the sauce, crack it again. This will help you dislodge and clean the rest of the crumbs off your stone in one fell swoop.
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