No breadstone: tin or tray?

Hello redrich,

For freeform loaves a metal oven tray will be fine.  The advantage of having an ovenstone is that it is a major heat sink and helps to stabilise the oven temperature through door openings etc.  And being at oven temp the loaf gets a good 'hit of heat on the bottom immediately while a cold oven tray will take a few minutes to get up to temperature.

Ditto loaf tins, particularly if you prefer a regular shaped loaf.  Also, for a particular recipe you might get a bit more rise due to the support given to the dough by the sides of the tin.

There are no hard and fast 'rules' - do what you see fit and with what you have to hand.  If you want and can afford it by all means get all of the nice to haves but not having them does not prevent you from making really nice bread.

Farinam

When my stone broke, I just lined the botto, rack of my oven with housebricks. It was a bit inconvenient if I had to move them, and they took a while to preheat, but they worked very well.