Pizza Stone woes

So DBF has a pizza stone. When I first saw it, it had lots of caked-on nasty and I thought to myself that I had no interest in that thing whatsoever. But I like to bake, so yesterday I took a chisel and some time on the balcony and tried to chip much of it away. Then I opened all the windows, turned on all the fans, set the oven to 500 degrees F (as high as it goes), and baked the thing for nearly two hours. I got used to the smoke smell pretty fast, but DBF was blinking back tears when he got home from work. All the other-colored stains, etc had turned black. Some were ashy black, some greasy nasty oil-black. I let it cool anf swept off all that I could.

So I want to make bread on this thing, but had no intention of wasting the time, effort and yeast on a challah braid if the bottom was going to be awful/disgusting anyway. So I whipped up a no-yeast pizza crust, brushed it with oil, sprinkled on mixed herbs and let it bake. It looks fine. It looks rather lovely, actually. The question now is whether it tastes all right. I'm worried about a smoky, ashy flavor. I can smell the smokiness, but that may just be the stupid oven itself. So I wait for it to cool a bit, then I'll check. Here's hoping!