possible to use steel plates?

[eyesight8]

we broke our concrete floor in our brick oven,somebody suggested that we use steel plates as a substitute. is this a sound advice?

[dmun]

You want a floor made of brick. If you wanted to cook on steel, you could just get a commerical deck oven, and save yourself a lot of trouble.

Steel, like most metals, is an excellent conductor of heat. It's going to wick away any heat in your oven, no matter how much insulation you have under it. A refractory floor will retain and reflect heat, and is the heart of good pizza making. With a steel floor, it's going to be really hot under the fire, and cold elsewhere. In addition, steel if heated unevenly, is going to warp, perhaps dramaticly.

[eyesight8]

thank you for your advice dmun

[james]

Here an interesting side note. Deck ovens have refractory hearths, and the cook at about 500F for 5-7 minute pizzas. The company that makes the Forno Bravo Pizza Stones also makes hearths for deck ovens.

It's the refractory that stores heat, provides the right thermal transfer rate(thermal conductivity) to cook at high heat but not burn, and is porous to extract moisture from dough and convert it to steam. Luckily, a basic low-mid density firebricks does this pretty well.
James