Pizza peel

Yep, parchment paper is the answer.  Saved my pizza career.

If you're dealing with a wet dough then building the pies quickly helps and try Semolina flour vs corn meal. 

Pizza looks good! I've never used a composite peel so I don't know how they behave. I understand aluminum is supposed to be kinda sticky. I've been using my two wooden peels for 20 years now, with a tiny pinch of semolina. Never had a pie stick to it. Shake it a bit after every ingredient addition and work fairly quickly. Tried parchment, but only once. Didn't like the crust texture and never used it again. I think it's easier with semolina anyway.

I build the pie, launch it onto the stone, remove it and then cut it all on my peel. Here's mine, with semolina. If you look closely, you can actually see it. That's all I ever use...

Doc_Eggerton said:

Parchment, ding ding.

I agree! After 7 or 8 minutes I slide my peel between the pizza and paper and remove the paper - that way the crust will brown up nicely.

Lots of varying opinions by guys who know their stuff.

As a matter of pride, I insisted on learning to do it without parchment.  Also, as I recall, parchment rated to only about 400 degrees.

Semolina flour, metal peel, and cast iron pizza pan gets my vote.

NPHuskerFL said:

https://youtu.be/pDeVxP2Ng1c

No one can say Andris Lagsdin doesn't have  sense of humor.

Done with the much maligned parchment paper launch.

NPHuskerFL said:

https://youtu.be/pDeVxP2Ng1c

This guy is hilarious!  Haven't watched any others, but subscribed to his channel for future.  

I use a wooden peel to put them on with probably too much corn meal to make the slide onto the stone easier.  I make my pizzas cracker-thin, so I can't afford to have them stick (the dough will tear).  I use a metal peel to pull them--this helps if you have a little cheese/pepperoni oil get on the peel during the pull.  Oil on a wooden peel can cause dough to stick.  If you do multiple pizzas a night, a 2nd peel is key--you can be building the next one when the first pizza is in the egg.  I overdo it with cornmeal, but to each his own.  Between pizzas, I use a dough scraper to clean the cornmeal off the stone--burnt cornmeal does NOT have good flavor.  The most pizzas I've done in a night is 10--no sticking at all.  One last thing... figuring out, as I call it, "the shake" takes some practice--this is making sure the dough "floats" on the peel...  I check the shake before any ingredients go on and then again once everything's on the pizza...  Usually, but not always, a good shake (or jerk of the peel) will float the pie.  Once you've floated it, it's easier to float it a second time.  Get it floated before you open the egg to put the pie on so you can get it on the stone and close the lid down ASAP.

If you don't let it sit on the peel too long, it comes right off.   The thing is, if it sits there too long the condensation from the colder dough or ingredients builds up between the dough and the egg and it'll stick.

I put some of that stone ground corn flour down on the peel and I don't put the pizza dough on it until I'm ready to make it!
Then since I have all my ingredients cut and ready, it's a quick assembly and then slide onto the stone.

AVEngineer said:

I always start my pizza cooks on parchment paper and pull it out after a few minutes.  I recently found some pizza screens and am looking to see how that goes.  Also I use a metal peel. Nice looking pizza.

 Ditto on the parchment, but I use a REAL wood peel. I actually use the Reynolds Parchment/Foil (foil side down) - keeps it from burning when > 650
Pull it out about a minute before it is "done".  (Although at ~675-700 it is generally done in ~2 minutes.

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

the super peel will pick up a dime off my counter top. 

HOW? I just wasted 15 minutes( )attempting to do that with my Super Peel. Only way to succeed was when I bumped the peel against the dime forcing it to slam against the splash board, go air bound and land on my peel's canvas!