How to use a wooden peel!
If you have experienced a pizza sticking the peel, you are not alone. This is the number one question we are asked! Try these steps and see how easy it can be to handle a pizza. Also check out the blog post Peel/Spatula for full details about this tool of the trade. Here are a few tricks we have learned about handling raw pizza. Whether you call it a pizza peel, pizza spatula, or a pizza paddle, these tips will help. Some people swear by parchment paper - but it is really not suitable for pizza cooking temperatures.
Equipment:
Aluminum peels grab onto raw dough. (Think white on rice) Try a wooden peel to put raw pizza into the oven.
The wood peel does need a little bit of dry lubrication - an eighth of a teaspoon of semolina flour, or cornmeal, or even regular flour will work.
The peel must be absolutely dry - don't soak a wooden peel before or after cooking. Dust with bread flour if the peel is even slightly moist.
Clean off any oil, dough, clumps of cheese, or moisture.
The pizza stone must be hot >400F for the dough not to stick to the stone.
Dough
Dough should be prepped in advance and be formed into a ball that is folded tightly to form surface tension.
Aged dough balls (overnight for example) form a light "outer skin". Not a hard, dry skin but a thicker outer layer.
Dough should be close to room temperature. This will reduce that spring back.
Don't break the surface skin of the dough when forming a pizza
Dunk your dough in flour before stretching it.
Rolling dough out with a rolling pin can squeeze out moisture. Hand toss, or press and stretch it out on a smooth floured surface like tile or granite.
Technique
Get used to the idea of dusty floured surfaces around dough.
Make sure your peel is smooth, dry, and clean. Sprinkle it with a tiny bit of cornmeal, semolina or flour.
Stretch the dough out on a smooth surface. Arrange the dough so the side that was facing up during aging ends up facing down against the peel. That side has skinned and will look smoother. (Don't roll or press down the dough after you place it on the peel. If it isn’t large enough, restretch and then place it on the peel)
Shake the wooden peel with a dough on it to ensure the dough is not sticking. If it doesn’t slide, stop here and get more flour under the dough.
Decorate the dough with ingredients while it is on the peel. Don’t dally. The longer the pizza sits on a peel the more it will begin to stick.
Resist piling on the ingredients. It is tough I know, but start light and after you have practiced launching, then work your way up. Also, use wet ingredients like sauce sparingly until you have launched a few pizzas.
Carry the peel to the oven and place the peel fully in the oven so the pizza peel head covers the hot stone. Shuffle the far edge of the pizza onto the stone and then jiggle/draw the peel out from under the pizza. The action is more like jerking a tablecloth out from under a table-setting than shoveling coal. It is ok to go slow and jiggle a lot.
Arrange the pizza on the stone as you withdraw the peel. - If it gets oblong or weirdly shaped, leave it and enjoy its craft-pizza uniqueness. If the front edge droops off the stone, let it cook for 30-40 seconds before using an aluminum peel to lift the whole pizza and rescue the edge.
Be patient- perfectly circular pizzas come from factories.
Mindset
A couple closing points that I hope are helpful. Pizza dough is variable - every batch will be slightly different. Sometimes it will be firm and easy to handle, other times it will be wet and hard to manage. Pizza handling is a skill. The more pizzas that you handle, the better you will be able to react to different conditions. Accidental calzones or launch failures can taste good too! Practice makes perfect and your friends won't mind being part of your pizza journey.
See other Articles on pizza peels HERE
See the peels we use HERE
We have a general FAQ section HERE
Here is a video clip of loading a pizza into a Pizza-Porta equipped with a double rack. Note the initial jolt and then the shuffle.
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Thanks for reading
Cortlandt