trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

[texassourdough]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

I agree with TS. I bought about 20 pizza aluminum pizza pans (yeah, I know, aluminum and acids...) but they are a practical way to let your guests experience making a pie. I refuse to let inexperienced guests (in any significant number) work with the peel (too many holey, glued pies with sauce all over the peel and folded pizza calzones and sauce all over the hearth). They can slow things down WAY too much. Pans are a good, cheap approach if you want to let them make pies.

I also STRONGLY encourage you to consider making your dough dry enough to be easily manageable. 70 % hydration dough is wonderful but...your guests are likely to be wearing it!

And please try not to gag at some of the combos your guests will come up with! )

Jay

[Tscarborough]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

Exactly. They are cheap (3-4 bucks), so I bought 8 each 10", and 3 each of 12" and 14". 3 is all I need to pump them out, but I bought the eight 10" for parties when they make their own.

[lwood]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

One of my great joys with the oven and pizza making has been teaching kids how to make their own pizza. I start with already proofed dough balls ready to spread out. Allow them to feel and play with the dough ball. I show them all how to spread it out and get it ready. They all love playing with the dough and I always have fun throwing flour at them. They aren't the prettiest, but they have fun. I quickly put the dough on the peel, top it and I am the only one to do the oven thing. Would never let an untrained person into the oven, particularly children. The pies are never perfect but the kids love their own pizza even more. A great life lesson for children. Now the kids all want to make their own pizza when they come over. Yes, some of their combinations are the funniest.

[jas.]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

You could simply throw a dusting of what you may call "corn meal" on the peel, or even "semolina", bakers do this , and it's what we did when i was cooking.The base just slides off!...... same go's for bread.

[mn8tr]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

Tried corn meal... bad idea it burns on the cooking surface. Flour works just fine for me

[That's Amore]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

I agree with serf, I too tried corn meal and it does burn the cooking surface and the pizza has the same burnt taste. Flour works for me to.

[chewbacca]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

I have about 15 of these. Easy to make yourself and works perfect!

[Fairview WFO]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

Wow, I'm way late to this thread but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in. We do the pizza prep right on the granite and then scoup it up with a metal peel with slots in it. FornoBravo sells these and I think they are by GIMetal. They have a great youtube video showing the pro's using them... You do have to place some flour on the granite, but it scoups right off and the flour drops out the slots so not a lot of flour in the oven. So when we have parties, we have several making pies and I'm scouping them up and pulling them back out.

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/memb...pn-up-pie.html

[Kings over Queens]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

Haven't read the whole thread and so my advice may have been offered already.

I've found a metal metal peel to be much more user friendly.

I keep flour for dusting in one of those grated cheese dispensers and use that to dust the peel before dressing the pie. It's also very handy when making bread too. Allows you to dispense just enough flour where you need it.

[jas.]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

I tried just using flour on my metal peel and it just frustrated me so I now use only rice flour on the peel and if I use a pizza tray,again I dust it with rice flour then I can finish the crusty base on the oven floor , I got this advice from here on the forum.
You could stay a traditionalist , or you can experiment , I found this less frustrating and tasty,, mmmm!!

[C5dad]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

RT Florida (#2, page 1)has it right - speed is of the essence. Also a very liberal dusting of rice flour helps as well. Lastly, how the toppings go on - lemme explain!

Over the past 4 firings, I have made a sacrifice to the fire gods of on pizza. It came to me as to why each of the past pizzas failed after working to avoid the failure.

What happens is that there is one person who takes way too much time to put the sauce on - it has to be an exact thickness across the skin, followed by making a masterpiece on the top. In last nights case, it was 2 young women sharing a pizza. The pizza also had a mounding effect from the pile o toppings as well. So, it did not slide off - except for the toppings. Then, when I got it on the stone, it stuck in the middle where the mound of toppings was the greatest, thus tearing. The fire gods were pleased with the sacrifice - and so was the dogs!

Interestingly, when they did the replacement, no rice flour was used on the peel. I was able to salvage the pizza with a hand full of rice flour and an additional pair of hands. This one also was mounded, so I kept the direct fire off the pizza to allow the bottom to catch up with the top and it worked great! Plus I knew where the cooler section of the floor was.

Hope this ramble helps!

[Rocko Bonaparte]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

I haven't really gotten my oven up to 900F yet, but previously at the lower temperatures I've used in it as well as my kitchen oven, I use semolina. The grain is a little bit finer than corn meal but they are clearly distinct and like to roll around. I shake a spoonful of semolina flour high over the peel so that it spreads around the peel fairly evenly. I put the pizza on right beforeI start to put on toppings, and occasionally shake the peel just a little to make sure it hasn't stuck yet.

[SableSprings]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

Over the last year I've become really attached to the method of using parchment paper underneath pizza and bread headed for the oven. Yes, the parchment will brown/burn but pizza always slides easily off the peel. Oftentimes when I slide my banjo peel under the baked pizza, the paper pushes out the other side. It's kind of handy to have guests do their pizza making on a piece of parchment away from the oven opening. When they're done and the oven's ready it's only seconds between loading onto the peel and into the oven. The best part is that anyone can do the actual oven loading because the parchment paper is really forgiving. I usually clean up and reposition pizzas after they are loaded to give them the best positions possible on the hearth during the bake...no one seems to notice or care about that moving-all they want is to say that they made and put it in the oven themselves.

My neighbor comes down once a week and we bake about 20 loaves of bread also using parchment. I appreciate that I don't fret anymore about the "cleanliness" of the hearth stones or that I might accidentally pick up some brick grit in the baked items. Anyway, it's worth looking into this method if you are having troubles with the "topping toss". (Incidentally, I use the browned parchment for starting the next fire.)

[lwood]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

Great tip for the innocent by-stander. I typically let guests open their own dough and put on their toppings (if they want), but don't let them load the oven. Parchment seems like a good solution for the novice, but it seems it would be a nuisance after a while.

There is nothing more satisfying than lifting up the pizza just after it has reached that magic moment when it is transformed from a jiggling pool of dough and toppings to a workable pizza. It's a miracle when it happens, you can see that at just the right moment, you can lift the edge of the pie and work with it in the oven. But don't touch it before that moment cause it will be a dripping mess of dough. Maybe I'm a purest, but the parchment paper takes away all that fun.

Don't get paranoid about getting the dough to release from the peel. I think wooden peels release a little better than metal. And the metal one with holes work really well. For bread, parchment is necessary sometimes.

[whodatoven]

Re: trouble getting the pizza to slide off the peel

If you use parchment paper, do you also send the paper into the oven? Would it burn?

I recently bought a aluminum screen and love it. By placing the pizza pie on top of the screen, it not only solves the problem of sticking to the peel but also avoids the charring of the bottom of the pizza pie. I usually burn the bottom while the top is hardly cooked. With screen, it takes almost twice as long to cook a pizza but it comes out perfect.