Pizza peel crossroad

RRP

Saturday I went shopping locally for a pizza peel. Little did I know that the choice would be so thought provoking! (HEY! I don't profess to being a Rhoades Scholar!) Here I was faced with buying a wooden one or a metal one. Both measured 14" which I thought was perfect because my BGE stone is 14", however each side of the wooden paddle had a 1" chamfer thus making the true flat surface only 12" wide. I figured a 14" pizza in process would mean the sauce would drain right off. In the end I purchased the metal one. I knew of the corn meal trick so I figured both wood and metal should work. Besides, being a wood butcher I'll make one to my own specs if my new metal one doesn't cut it, but with one pizza to my credit I think I made the right choice. Any comments anyone?

Spin

RRP,[p]I have one metal peel and don't use it. The dough will tend to stick to it much quicker than a wooded peel. It was much harder to use than the wooden peel.[p]I then used it (I owned it) for removing the finished pies. Again, the wooden peel proved better. It seems that a finished pie slides VERY easy on metal .[p]My favorite peel (birch) is a 16" model that I cut down to 14" by removing the sides.[p]Spin

Lee2

RRP,
Something else that works very nicely is an unfinished cedar shingle. I learned about them from a Julia Child cookbook and used one for years for bread baking. Some fool threw it away and I had to resort to a wooden peel. I certainly did love that shingle though.

Char-Woody

RRP, Its a learning process, but I fly with Spin and Lee2, wood is better. The finished pizza will usually slide very easily off the stone onto your peel for delivery. Some need to be encouraged a bit with a long knife blade slipped under the finished pizza. Then slide it off.
Char-Woody

Tim M

<p />RRP,[p]With all this talk about pizza peels - Here's mine.[p]The nice pretty one I bought for $9 from www.katom.com and the other I made one day when I wanted a peel but couldn't buy one locally (now I know Target carries them). Its made from a "For Sale" sign (happen to have a few of them) with the paint sanded off and extra pieces glued to beef up the handle. It works great and like Spin said, its nice to have two so you can work on one and remove with the other.[p]Tim

J Appledog

Char-Woody, A pizza peel can also be used as an umbrella in a pinch! JCA

Char-Woody

J Appledog, Only a blonde would think of that..BTW...is a pinch something like rain??[p]I had to do that!! C~W[p]