Transferring the dough onto the stone ...

CheeseheadIllinois

OK guys, I'm sure this is easier than I'm making it out to be ...

I got my dough from Trader Joes, floured my cutting board, rolled out the dough and made the pizza. The grill's all set. The pizza stone's been preheating with the grill and we're at 550 degrees. HOW DO I GET THE LOADED PIE ON THE STONE? I try to slide the metal pizza spatula (what's it called?) under the pizza but because the bottom is uncooked dough, I can't fully slide the spatula under the whole pie. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?

Signed,

Frustrated Cheesehead

CheeseheadIllinois

Parchment paper between the pizza stone and the pizza? And a few minutes into cooking the crust is cooked enough to remove the parchment paper???

Botch

1) get yourself a wooden pizza peel, but keep the metal one for removing the cooked pie.

2) when you have your dough stretched to the proper diameter, flour IT, not the peel.

3) flip the dough upside down onto the wood peel, which you've pre-sprinkled with cornmeal (I use a standard salt shaker for this), floured-side down.

4) dress the pie quickly; the longer it sits on the wooden peel the more likely it is to stick.

5) just before opening the Egg, give the pie a quick shake; if it sticks anywhere, lift the closest edge, lean down and blow some air to loosen it (once you get a feel for flouring the bottom of the crust and cornmealing the peel, you won't have to worry about this).

6) shake the pie onto the stone, return the wooden peel to its place in the kitchen, and grab your metal peel for turning/removing.

 

The parchment method is popular on this forum, but the folks on the pizza forum will laugh at you and poke you with sharp sticks, plus its something else to buy and you have to open the Egg one more time to remove the paper... 

CGW1

Look into the super peel. You can google the product, I use it all the time and it works great.

Nebraskaegger

I roll out my dough on a floured counter top. Then place the dough on my wood pizza peel that is covered in cornmeal. Once it is on the peel I make adjustments to the dough to get it into as perfect of a circle as i possibly can.  Then i build my pizza.  I've never had much problems with sticking and very little of the cornmeal on the peel actually sticks to the dough.  But it is important to work fairly quick once you have the dough on the peel.  I would think shaping the dough and building the pizza and then trying to get the peel under it would be very difficult it not impossible.

Smokin_Good

+1 on the super peel. Works great for putting the pizza on. I wouldn't recommend it for taking it off though. Keep your metal one for that.

tazcrash

To remove with a wood peel all you need is 1 second over seering hit to hook the crust lip and slid that peel under it.
Before I did that, I used my BBQ spatula RO lift the crust and get the wood peel under it.
As said above periodically give your pie a shake to make sure its not sticking.
I use corn meal on peel to keep that dough rolling off.

CheeseheadIllinois

I'm sensing progress for the 'ol Cheesehead here. One more question. In order to get that really crisp 'n crunchy crust, do you find that you need to cook the crust first without anything on it for a few minutes? (I'm guessing no but want to confirm).

Happy Egging' and have a good weekend.

njl

I've been doing pizza's in the inside oven at 425F on a stone with parchment...and I don't bother removing it.  It makes it easier to remove the pizza from the oven as well.  I just grab an edge of the parchment and pull it off the stone onto a flat baking sheet, then pull from the baking sheet onto a wire cooling rack.

FuzzyK

I think part of your problem could be the weight of your toppings. I'd let the dough cook for about 8-10 minutes in the egg before placing the toppings on.  This not only simplifies the transfer, but also ensures that your crust is fully cooked (and crisp) without burning your cheese or toppings.

You can add toppings while the pizza is on the egg...or if you don't want to compromise the heat of your egg, you could bring it back inside to finish prepping it...and place it back on the egg when finished (a partially cooked crust is MUCH easier to transfer).

If you'd like to see it in action, I recently posted a discussion on my Buffalo Chicken Pizza recipe that can be found here:

http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/comment/1174130

You can also view the video here:

http://youtu.be/A6P0zOwS9lE

Lastly...

If you are still having trouble transferring the uncooked dough (before the toppings), 
 I'd recommend rolling out your dough on a floured surface and transferring it by using a pizza peel.  You can find a pizza peel at most kitchen stores, but I found one similar to mine at webrestaurantstore.com (link below)

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/american-metalcraft-2616-16-x-17-wood-pizza-peel-with-9-handle/1242616.html?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cse&utm_campaign=GoogleShopping&gclid=CKHVqM7tibACFYFo4AodrljKPQ

Hope that helps, and good luck!

xraypat23

I've been a pizza man for years, getting even a well floured pie off the peel and into a wide open oven is an art. When you're aiming a 12" pie at a 13" stone, it's near impossible. The flour always burns in the egg anyways so i've learned that trimmed parchment paper is the absolute key to perfect pies. 600degrees, 3-4 minutes with paper, than burp and open the egg, pull the paper up and let the bottom continue to brown. Works perfect every time and haven't gotten sauce or cheese on my stone yet.

CheeseheadIllinois

Using the wood pizza peel with some corn meal and baking the pie without toppings for 5 minutes worked great. Thanks all!

EggheadCheesehead

dowy

Another option is to make the pizza on parchment paper on a cookie sheet that doesn't have sides. Same effect as the peel, but can obviously be used for other things.

RichardBronosky

Never prebake crust for an egg pizza. The reason for using an egg is to do high temp, wood fired brick oven style pizza. You are always fighting against over cooking your crust.

Parchment paper is a crutch. But, there are so many variables to get right... Use the crutch until it's the last thing to overcome. Your pizza will be no better if you overcome it. On the contrary, many people claim that flour and cornmeal negatively affect the pizza.

See: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

boatbum

I guess I like crutch's  - cause all I use anymore is the parchment paper approach.    You can lay out the pizza dough in advance, don't have to worry about it sticking to your pan or your peel.   Really nice when you are doing more than one pizza.

Works like a champ...

 

RichardBronosky

@boatbum, yeah if you watch the youtube demos from people like the smokin' guitar player, you'll learn that the trick is assemble the pizza on the peel and to keep it from sticking shake it every 45 seconds until you get it on the egg. I can't handle that kind if stress.

boatbum

Yeah - I can see that now - trying to assemble a pizza - shaking the peel every 45 seconds - that pizza will wind up on the floor - already know that.

crmilt

I use an Air-Bake pizza pan as a substitute for the parchment paper.  I build my pizza on the Air-Bake pan, put the pan on the pizza stone in the Egg, let it cook for 2-3 minutes then slide the pizza off the pan and directly on the stone.

Works great.   I use 2 Air-Bake pizza pans so I can build my next pizza while the previous pizza is cooking.

BigGreenJon

I've never used parchment paper, just a healthy dose of corn meal on the peel and the pizza stone.  Just yesterday we celebrated my sons' birthday and I spent two hours baking pizzas.  I lost count on how many I made.  I never had one problem with dough sticking.  I use a wooden peel to get the pizzas onto the egg and a metal one to remove, mainly because the metal peel is much thinner to get under the pizza.

njl

Related question, I guess...are you (plural) hand tossing the crust, rolling it out with a pin, or spreading it out by hand...or some combination of all of those methods? 

Back when I used to use a pan, I'd hand stretch it as much as I could, then place it on the pan, and hand spread it out roughly evenly to cover the pan.  When I switched to using a stone, the first few times, I tried doing this on the parchment, but it was a PITA because the parchment tended to move around, bunch up, etc.  The last several times, I've hand stretched it some, then used a rolling pin on a floured granite counter top, then transfered from there to the parchment.  This can be hit or miss depending on how dry I made the dough and how well the counter top was floured...but generally it transfers well enough that I only have to do a little fixing once its on the parchment.  Then I pre-bake it about 4 minutes, add all the toppings, and bake another 12 minutes.

Principalchef

The problem with cornmeal is that it works great for one or two pizzas, but then you get the burnt residue that impacts pizzas 3 - 8. So I use parchment paper for, cut to the size of the pizza, 1 minute then take it out. I do it at 550 degrees for 6-8 minutes and it's perfect every time.

airport guy

I have found after rolling the dough on a well floured pizza peel, it helps to put the pizza peel in the freezer for 10 minutes before sliding it onto the preheated pizza stone in the egg. I usually cook the crust at 600 for a couple minutes, then build the pizza right in the egg.

OrangeandBrown

I tried my first pizza tonight and needless to say, the transfer of the dough from a cornmeal-coated cookie sheet onto the stone was a challenge.  I think I am going to try the parchment paper route based on what I have been reading.  I am also going to pick up a metal BGE peel for removal.

Curious, how easy is it to remove the parchment paper after a few minutes of cooking on the stone?  And does it burn at all?  And does anybody put cornmeal or flour on the parchment paper?

Thanks for the input.

Doc_Eggerton

Curious, how easy is it to remove the parchment paper after a few minutes of cooking on the stone?  And does it burn at all?  And does anybody put cornmeal or flour on the parchment paper?

I had a BGE peel, it was too small.  I got an American Metalcraft one. Much better.  The paper is easy to remove, about 5 minutes into the cook.

Hi54putty

I leave the paper for the whole cook. I don't see any benefit to removing it.

rickHP

 

Curious, how easy is it to remove the parchment paper after a few minutes of cooking on the stone?  And does it burn at all?  And does anybody put cornmeal or flour on the parchment paper?

 

I haven't done pizza on the Egg yet, but have a lot of experience doing it in the oven (550 degrees convection with a special ceramic insert) with parchment. The ease of pulling the paper depends on how closely you trim it to the edge of the pizza. A little paper overhang helps. I usually use tongs to help grab it.

 

I've had friends have the paper ignite in a regular oven, so I guess it might happen in an egg if there's a lot of paper flapping around, but that shouldn't happen. No need to use flour or conrmeal.

 

Purists will claim that cooking entirely on parchment yields a different crust than exposing the dough directly to the stone, so I'm in the camp of pulling the parchment after a couple of minutes.

MO_Eggin

+1 on using trimmed parchment for the whole cook.  The part under the pizza may brown a bit, but IME that has no negative impact on the crust.

Iceman5705

I got a new peel today from the www.thekitchestoremaumee.com.

It is part number WPP-2024.  It was a little over $17.00

I have the BGE XL and I should be able to get an 18" pie on there.

OrangeandBrown

Doc,

That peel looks nice and the pizza looks killer!  Did you buy the peel online or through a brick-n-mortar?

Curious, how easy is it to remove the parchment paper after a few minutes of cooking on the stone?  And does it burn at all?  And does anybody put cornmeal or flour on the parchment paper?

I had a BGE peel, it was too small.  I got an American Metalcraft one. Much better.  The paper is easy to remove, about 5 minutes into the cook.