you can leave it in the oven during a self clean cycle. It will bring it back to like new. Of course, you'll lose any "seasoning" on it.

I wouldn't wash it with soapy water or with bleach. The stones are absorbent and you don't want it absorbing soaps or bleaches. And never season it with oil either. They don't need to be seasoned.

Just put it through your oven's cleaning cycle as Stacy mentioned. They come out clean, almost like new. That is how I keep mine clean.

I leave mine in the oven so although I only bake breads and pizza on it it does get stained from other high heat cooking/roasting.

Ann

Good to know, mine needs help too. So does the oven, so I guess it's time.

Nancy

I scour mine with either baking soda or coarse salt.

Ok, I was thinking of this yesterday as I have a recipe for whole wheat pita breads that call for a stone. I don't have a lot of time to go looking for one this week but recall that there were a lot of options for 'stones' to use. If worse comes to worse, I figure I'll heat my cast iron griddle.

But please...refresh my memory for the options for bread baking stones. We're trying to go off white flour and I need to bake. Maureen

Thanks all. I'll use the oven cleaning, never thought of that.

Maureen, I got mine at walmart. I think it was around $7. It works just fine.

I discovered this entirely by accident. We usually have pizza on Friday. Because it has been so darn hot, I started to cook it on the barbeque grill (I put the stone right on the grill). Low and behold, when I took the pizza out my stone was clean! (It did have some dark spots still - stains - that will never come out I guess but all the gunk was off.) I guess the barbeque grill gets hotter than my oven so the extra heat took care of it. Almost looks like new, only slightly "seasoned."

hmmm, my seasoned stone, comes clean with a bit of hot water and a green nylon scrubbie..

I have a round Pampered Chef pizza stone and it is a very dark brown, almost black color, from many years of use. But it is perfectly seasoned! Nothing sticks to it, and even if some cheese or sauce gets baked on, all it needs is to be rinsed under hot water with a plastic scraper. Then I air dry it. The dark color doesn't bother me.

Maureen : This was discussed in another thread a while back . Maybe you can find it in a Search.
Lou

Maureen I don't have any problem with the crusts by using or Baking in pans or on Cookie tins.
Wouldn't hurt to try. Every one talks about Chicago, Sicilian Pizza,etc., most are baked in Pans.

Like I said many, many, times before. I built one of my Pizza ovens and it had sort of a stone shelf,
that I cooked on but I used Pans .
It Baked better that the Pizza oven, that I bought.

There are those who dissagree but have never tried anything different, to compare.

I'm always experimenting and tasteing to make the best, that I can.
The Clean Cycle works. I know because the control on the pizza oven, that I built got stuck and the temp went to
900 deg. The black shelf was white again.

Lou
LOU

Bkaing Soda hot water and a scrub brush mines 10yrs old black but clean and makes a crazy pizza crust!!! My entire family knows not to touch moms stones!!

Reviving this because I think I must be missing something basic. I just used my pizza stone in a 500 degree oven and the smoke and grease smell set off the alarms. It obviously needs to be cleaned, but I've gotten off all that baking soda can already. So, after it was in the 500 degree oven there was a lot of black burnt grease on it's surface, but by the time it cooled enough to take it out it had all re-absorbed into the stone. Will I have to go through the house filled with smoke again to really clean it? (My oven doesn't have "self-clean" and I don't really know how that works.)

Thanks,
Amanda

Lava Stone for cooking supplier

www.vescostone.com