I don't leave mine on the floor of my gas oven, but I have it on one of the oven racks at the lowest level and leave it in the oven all the time. This weekend I had a spill of cinnamon filling from the babkas I was making. While the sugar was still hot, I scraped it from the stone with a thin metal spatula - the sugar goo came right off.

When you bake bread or pizza directly on the preheated hot stone, it wicks away moisture from the bread bottom and makes a delicious crust. Breads and pizza bake a little more quickly when baked directly on the stone and the pizza crust can pick up a nice "char" while baking on the stone.

For the best pizza, preheat your oven to 450-550F for about an hour. Then, using a wooden pizza peel topped with cornmeal (for ball bearings) lay on your raw crust, top quickly with a little sauce and not too heavy on the toppings, take said peel to the open oven door, slide it along the hot stone, jerk back with the peel handle and you will have safely transported the pizza from the peel to the center (more or less) of the stone. Takes a little practice; try with 10" pizzas before you try bigger crusts.

I don't keep mine in the oven..but I do use them for baking everything..I have lots of stoneware. I have one large pizza round stone and various other pieces.

In some ovens the stones help keep heating even...I found that to be true in my old electric oven..I don't need it in my gas oven though.

Use it as a cookie sheet too.

You'll love your stone! I have a large round and a rectangular and use them for pizza, breads, cookies.... anything I'd use a cookie sheet for.

I have an electric oven with an element on the floor, so I can't leave stones on the floor of the oven.

If you don't have peel, (I don't) you can let the dough rise on parchment paper on the bottom side of a half sheet pan (or a rimless pan) and then slide the dough... parchment paper and all onto the preheated stone in the oven.

Grace

One further note: NEVER wash it with soap! It is porous and will soak the soap up.

I even cook biscuits on it. When done, remove stone place on trivet in center of table, then put other dishes of food on stone and they will remain hot throughout the meal. I leave the pizza on it too and it stays hot through the entire pizza eating. Just warn little ones not to touch.

Mine is actually too large for some uses; I need to look for a smaller one for some things......warning: It is darned heavy!

Don't wash when hot! Let cool and run hot water only over it. I use my bench scraper to get up little stuck pieces.

I couldn't be without one now that I have it, actually it is my second one. The first cracked in half.

I don't know about the bottom of the oven. Seems like the bottom rack would be plenty fine, the actual bottom would block too much heat and be too extreme. Mine just stays ion the bottom rack unless I'm using both racks for something else and I take it out before turning on the oven.
Warning. Be careful how you break this in. The first one I bought was a Williams Sonoma one (also had little raised "feet") which was sort of an orangish color and was of a material that seemed sort of coarse and grainy. To "season" I spread some cheap crescent rolls out flat (my big mistake) so of course they burned on. Not only could I not get it off but the fake butter or maybe something else who knows created a chemically smell when it burnt.
I really did try to salvage the thing by repeated soakings and scrapings and cooking at high heat to try to burn the residue off - all that happened was I about killed myself with the smoke and smell. I finally admitted defeat and threw it away.
So if you have that kind (vs. the sort of greyer colored ones that have a much smoother grain, like pampered chef and the Oneida one I bought at BBB)
I wouldn't try to season just let the cooking you do season as you go and use high quality "fats".

The stone I have is almost 10 years old and gets left in the oven. If you have a self-cleaning oven, just leave the stone in during a cleaning cycle and it will look as good as new.

I know that some stones call for "seasoning" . Don't do it. And as someone mentioned above, never wash it with soap.

Also, don't put food on a cold stone. YOu want to preheat the stone for about 20 to 30 minutes before baking on it.

If you are going to bake bread and pizza on the stone, get yourself a small "peel" so that you can slide the items on to the stone.

An advantage to leaving the stone in the oven is that it helps to maintain a constant heat in the oven when the oven door is opened.

Ann

Well I had a Pampered Chef baking stone for years and years. I used it for everything and loved it. Well one day it broke, I'm not sure how but it did.

So, like Marys1000, I went to Williams and Sonoma and bought one like she did.

That thing smelled so bad! I dont know what the problem was, I even let it go through the cleaning cycle thinking whatever that horrible smell was would bake off. Nope. It made my whole oven stink. A chemical type smell... I threw it out.

Now I'm without a baking stone. I might order another one from Pampered Chef; I had such great results with that one.

What is it with Williams and Sonomas baking stones? I really should have taken it back; it was just too darned heavy!

Thanks to Shaun's gift, I have been enjoying the benefits of cooking with a stone.

I appreciate the tips on the maintenance and usage of the stone.

Both of mine are Pampered Chef. I like having both the rectangular and the big round.

Though I preheat for breads, pizza etc, I don't for cookies and biscuits. BUT do you think preheating it for biscuits would be good??

Grace

Oh so maybe it wasn't the burned rolls making the smell? Sort of makes sense now, I really did get most of it off but just couldn't deal. My apt isn't that big and when trying to bake it off it would just make my eyes burn.
Oddly, the reason I got the WS first was they were the only ones I could find that seemed to be made in the US though I could never find out for sure.

Shaun - The Oneida one I got at BBB seems very similar to Pampered Chef.

I do deep dish Chicago style pizza in a specially designed deep dish baking stone. I found it at a restaurant second hand store and have no idea who makes it or where it originally came from. I also use it for a roasting pan, pie pan, corn meal cake pan, or anything else which a round high sided 11" pan made from stone will work for.

Here is a link that might be useful: traveling and cooking with grandpa

Thanks for all the information! The stone I got is from William-Sonoma, a large pourous type rectangle. I do know not to use dish soap on it, and I have it on the bottom rack in my gas oven, but haven't used it yet. I sure hope I don't have to deal with any type of odor from it.

The information that came with this stone says not to bake cookies or any other high fat content food, pastries etc. directly on the stone as it will absorb the fat and start smoking! So I will avoid doing that and hopefully end up with a seasoned stone in the future.

Thanks for all the pizza, baking and care tips!

Di

Thanks for that info Marys1000.

Hey Cathy does your stone smell bad?

Teresa knows her pizza making, so listen up! She was our dough master at Paney Camp. Our last night at camp, she was a drill sargent as we made team pizzas for dinner.