New Pizza Stuff

stemc33 · July 2014

Picked up a couple of things to help me out with pizza. The peel is a game changer.

GeorgeS · July 2014

What is that roller for? I assume your giving the dough some acupuncture but what for?

SmokingOzarksBBQ · July 2014

I just bought an aluminum peel with short handle and an Old Stone Oven 16 in stone. Plan on using it today. I wanted a wooden peel but decided to go for the aluminum since it was thinner and could perhaps easily slide under the pizza a bit better. We'll show how it turns out.

How do you like your peel?

stemc33 · July 2014

GeorgeS said:

What is that roller for? I assume your giving the dough some acupuncture but what for?

It keeps the pizza dough from bubbling up when it cooks.

stemc33 · July 2014

SmokingOzarksBBQ said:

I just bought an aluminum peel with short handle and an Old Stone Oven 16 in stone. Plan on using it today. I wanted a wooden peel but decided to go for the aluminum since it was thinner and could perhaps easily slide under the pizza a bit better. We'll show how it turns out.

How do you like your peel?

I had both, an aluminum and wooden one in my hands. The wooden and it's not really a traditional wood peel, but some kind do pressed wood, was bigger and the aluminum one folded in half. Sliding under the cooked pizza is really easy with the one I bought. A little tricky getting the pie to slide off. It's so much better than what I was using.

Let's us know how the aluminum works.

DMW · July 2014

I have both wooden and metal. Wooden for launching, metal for pulling. The raw dough will tend to stick to metal more than wood.

SmokingOzarksBBQ · July 2014

i thought the same thing that the dough would stick more to the metal than wood but i read so many reviews where people said the opposite. Either way i bought it and in about 1 hour will test it out.

Botch · July 2014

DMW said:

I have both wooden and metal. Wooden for launching, metal for pulling. The raw dough will tend to stick to metal more than wood.

Same here.

keepervodeflame · July 2014

I use a metal peel for both launching and pulling, but build my pies on parchment rounds. The parchment makes for easy transfer. I leave it under the pizza for the first 4 minutes of the cook and then pull it. Produces a nice and toasty bottom crust without burn spots.

anzyegg · July 2014

Use parchment paper instead of the messy cornmeal. It works great and no stick. You can also tell if the bottom is burning easier.

DMW · July 2014

Forgot to mention, I build the pies on the wooden peel. With wet dough (which is what I make) you need to move quickly.

Carolina Q · July 2014

keepervodeflame said:
I use a metal peel for both launching and pulling, but build my pies on parchment rounds. The parchment makes for easy transfer. I leave it under the pizza for the first 4 minutes of the cook and then pull it. Produces a nice and toasty bottom crust without burn spots.

LOL. The FIRST four minutes? Mine usually only TAKE four minutes! Parchment ruins a good pie. And the "burn spots" are the best part!! Just had a pie from a real WFO and loved the char.

stemc33 · July 2014

On this pizza night, I pressed out the dough on all three pizza's and put them on parchment paper. Then transferred the dough to the peel and built the pizza on the peel when I was ready to cook. Two of the pies slid right on the stone. I'm thinking I might need it use the parchment paper to get the pizza on the stone. It's just so easy to overshoot the stone with the peel. I think the parchment paper would help. I don't know, maybe I'll get better at landing on the stone with practice. All I know is the peel made a huge difference compared the cardboard I was using.

Hibby · July 2014

Parchment ruins a good pie? You may not prefer that method but to say it ruins it is . . . ummm. . .

Carolina Q · July 2014

Hibby said:
Parchment ruins a good pie? You may not prefer that method but to say it ruins it is . . . ummm. . .

Have you ever seen them use parchment at a real pizzeria? No? That's because they can't afford to ruin their pies.

SmokingOzarksBBQ · July 2014

stemc33 said:

SmokingOzarksBBQ said:

I just bought an aluminum peel with short handle and an Old Stone Oven 16 in stone. Plan on using it today. I wanted a wooden peel but decided to go for the aluminum since it was thinner and could perhaps easily slide under the pizza a bit better. We'll show how it turns out.

How do you like your peel?

I had both, an aluminum and wooden one in my hands. The wooden and it's not really a traditional wood peel, but some kind do pressed wood, was bigger and the aluminum one folded in half. Sliding under the cooked pizza is really easy with the one I bought. A little tricky getting the pie to slide off. It's so much better than what I was using.

Let's us know how the aluminum works.

Tried the aluminum peel and it worked like a charm. The dough was room temp and i used some cornmeal when shaping the dough and sliding onto the peel. i would highly recommend the American Metal peel i got from Amazon. I also used the Old Stone Oven brand 16in baking stone. It was also a great performer. Pizza simply came out perfectly and not burned.

mcmac · July 2014

I think I have same peel as the one in the photo above. I like it, but I found I needed to lift the front edge of the pie to slide it onto the stone. I really like how sharp the leading edge is for getting under the cooked pizza. Not the cheapest peel out there but it worked well for me. I'm still a rookie at launching the pie onto the stone... If I'm not careful some of the toppings slide right off the pie and on to the stone :-O

Mickey · July 2014

Gets edge easy to pull parchment after the first min.

Mickey · July 2014

With that size easy for Granddaughters to build own pizza.

stemc33 · July 2014

Looks tasty @Mickey‌ I think I'm gonna try the parchment paper. If if gets ruined as @Carolina_Q reports, I'll just revert back to the raw dough on the stone.

Mickey · July 2014

stemc33 said:

Looks tasty @Mickey‌ I think I'm gonna try the parchment paper. If if gets ruined as @Carolina_Q reports, I'll just revert back to the raw dough on the stone.

The trick is to pull at the first min. This is the only way I do pizza and it's worked for 7 years. I can't make the other methods not still stick somewhere. It's all what works for you. And I wish I had shot the bottoms, no different.

Griffin · July 2014

@Mickey did a pizza that wasn't a tortilla pizza?

@stemc33 I haven't seen a "docker" since my college pizza career days. It does help with the bubbling up and is supposed to help the pizza cook faster. Not sure if it really does that second part or not, but I still dock my pizzas at home. I just use a fork, though.

DMW · July 2014

Carolina Q said:

Parchment ruins a good pie? You may not prefer that method but to say it ruins it is . . . ummm. . .
Have you ever seen them use parchment at a real pizzeria? No? That's because they can't afford to ruin their pies.

They also can't be bothered with the extra time and materials cost. Even if the crust bakes exactly the same, why bother if you don't need it?

Don't roll your pies folks. Either stretch by hand or toss to shape. Have a well floured prep area with a floured peel. Have everything all set and ready to go. Build a pie quickly. You will mess up and end up making some calzones when learning. But it's worth it, especially when you have 5 pizzas to bake and a hungry crowd. The entire process of building the pie, baking, cooling, and slicing is about 5 minutes per pie.

Using the parchment paper as @Mickey suggests for little ones to build their own pies is a great idea.

NPHuskerFL · July 2014

I have both peels and use a fork to dock my dough when I do it. I use the wooden peel for building pies and placing them onto the egg. I use the aluminum one to pull the pies etc out of the egg.

Cowdogs · July 2014

Carolina Q said:

Parchment ruins a good pie? You may not prefer that method but to say it ruins it is . . . ummm. . .
Have you ever seen them use parchment at a real pizzeria? No? That's because they can't afford to ruin their pies.

Not really a valid argument Q. As restaurants make pizzas they can put them in the oven right away. They have oven space for lots of pizzas, but on the BGE I am limited to one pizza at a time. I want to make 3 pizzas all at once, and I use a pretty wet dough. Even if I had enough peels to make 3 pizzas at once, I promise you will not be sliding that 3rd pizza off the peel after it sits 20-30 minute on a peel ... no matter how much cornmeal or semolina flour I lay down.

Parchment solves this issue. And if you are cooking you pizzas in 4 minutes, the parchment only needs to be there about 30 seconds. I doubt 30 seconds on paper could ruin the pizza.

stemc33 · July 2014

Griffin said:

@Mickey did a pizza that wasn't a tortilla pizza?

@stemc33 I haven't seen a "docker" since my college pizza career days. It does help with the bubbling up and is supposed to help the pizza cook faster. Not sure if it really does that second part or not, but I still dock my pizzas at home. I just use a fork, though.

Never new that thingamajig was called a "docker". Seen the guy at Papa John's using it and figured I needed one. Seems to work pretty good. I like an occasional bubble, but I was getting some enormous ones with the Egg.

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