Reddit mentions: The best pizza peels

Okay, here we go...

Mandatory items:

• Food processor or stand mixer
  
  
• Baking scale that measures in grams and ounces
  
  
• Baking stone ^1
  
  
• Wood pizza peel ^2
  
  
• Aluminum pizza peel
  
  Notes:
  
  ^1 Most people will swear by a baking steel instead of a ceramic stone. If your budget allows it, a 1/4" thick steel is much better than a stone.
  
  ^2 I linked to a fancy one, but it really makes dismounting your raw pizza onto your hot stone/steel an easy task. There are cheaper wood peels that don't have the canvas conveyor.
  
  Recipes:
  
  For the dough, my favorite is Kenji's. I follow it to the T, weighing out each item in grams, and it's perfect. Honestly, I've only tried two other dough recipes, and the differences between all of them are minor, but Kenji's is the lightest and crispiest, but not too crispy.
  
  For the sauce, I've only tried a couple, but I love u/dopnyc's sauce. I tweak it a little. I use canned whole san marzanos, but only the tomatoes, I omit the juice they're in and the water in the recipe. I blend the whole tomatoes and then add all of the other ingredients. This makes enough for about four 12" pizzas. It will freeze well.
  
  For the cheese, the most important thing is you need whole milk, low-moisture mozz. Avoid pre-shredded anything, the added cellulose prevents proper melting. Avoid skim/part skim, and avoid fresh mozz (the stuff in water). It's kind of hard to find, but at my local grocery store, Kraft sells string cheese called Creamy that works great. It's delicious. However, it doesn't shred well, so I have to freeze it for about 15 min before grating. Now, I'm not saying that string cheese is the best option, it's just my only option at my local store. There are better options sold in a brick. Again, whole milk, low-moisture is the key.
  
  Toppings:
  
  Try to find a log of pepperoni and slice them off yourself. This will usually yield the coveted pepperoni cups once baked, each with their own personal portion of delicious pepperoni grease.
  
  I like Kenji's itallian pizza sausage recipe. It's very flavorful. You can make this with a food processor instead of a meat grinder/stand mixer.
  
  I gotta go for now, but let me know if you're still interested, I can write up some more on technique for dough balling and stretching and baking.

So this is a little different, but hear me out.

A maple chopping block is a thing of beauty and a joy and I love mine beyond all measure. BUT ... for everyday cutting, I depend on these:
http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Boards-Epicurean-Piece-Natural/dp/B004TJMPWO

They are the best cutting boards ever, are dishwasher safe, develop a "patina" with age and use, and won't damage her good knives. I have the "natural" color ones that I use for every day and the black ones that I use for meat only. (I think you said she was veggie, so that might not be something she needs.)

But a set of these would be an awesome gift, IMO.

Also the same company makes pizza peels (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PRI3TS/) and a whole slew of other kitchen items that you could bundle together to make a theme.

Wrap them up with a set of good quality, old fashioned, flour sack kitchen towels:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UXNWGCY/

That would be an awesome gift - at least from my perspective. :)

You paid 30 euros for two 20cm x 40cm x 1.5cm plates?!? No offense, but that sounds way too good to be true.

I think that peel is, how did you put it? Utter crap :) Wood is absolutely critical for the launch, because, as the skin sits on it, it absorbs some moisture, which gives you considerably more time than metal does before the skin starts to stick.

It's not that ideal, and should only be temporary as you're looking for a real wood peel, but a thick-ish piece of cardboard will work pretty well- better than aluminum will.

Does Metro carry any wood peels?

This is the metal peel that you want for turning and retrieving:

https://www.amazon.de/dsfeqwq-Edelstahl-Schale-Schaufel-Tablett/dp/B07KXPNJ41/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543542724&sr=8-1&keywords=edelstahl+round+pizza+peel

The size should be just about right for a 40cm pie, and the price can't be beat. It looks like it's coming from China, which could take a while, so I'd order it quickly.

I can't tell if this is in stock or not, but this is the peel you want:

https://www.amazon.de/American-Metalcraft-Sch%C3%A4lt-verschiedene-Gr%C3%B6%C3%9Fen/dp/B0001MRSKM

You want the larger one- the 2616. This may have some trouble fitting in your oven, so you might need to sand down the sides a bit. This is the same one:

https://www.amazon.de/American-Metalcraft-Handle-AMERICAN-METALCRAFT/dp/B0118DZSI6/

but shipped from the U.S., and marked up accordingly.

You went through a lot of trouble to get a 40cm steel. Don't shortchange yourself with a small peel. You might not make 40cm pies right out of the gate, but, trust me, eventually you will.

Re; the flour you ordered. Yes, that's one of the ones I recommended. Perfect.

The cheese blocks we have here are about 2.5kg and look like this:

https://sc02.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1b474KpXXXXaQXXXXq6xXFXXX5/Mozzarella-cheese-block.jpg

3 euros for 150g is about how much we pay for scarmoza here. It is kind of extreme. It's the best cheese you'll ever find for pizza, but the price you pay for that level of quality is just too high.

On my last trip to my local distributor one of the blocks was firm but not yellow. I'm not sure how they achieved this, but, don't always go by color. Yellow and firm is ideal, but white and firm is still much better than white and soft.

Re; the photos. Metro most likely has security cameras in place, so, even if no one is around, try to be discreet about the photos.

>Wow, a new blackstone AND you're using it for one of your first pies? That's pretty... ambitious :)

True. My family saw me obsessing over it and over pizza making in general and ordered it for me. I'm sure there will be burnt crusts, misshapen pies, and a lot of cursing at the start, but all will be well in the end.

>It did hit 90 degrees here yesterday, so I can sort of understand how you might want to be baking outdoors.

Too true. I'm in the San Joaquin Valley. 106 felt like a relief today after 117 yesterday. There's a FEMA advisory in place here.

>I fully endorse the NY style dough recipe in the wiki. I should know, I wrote it ;) Seriously, though, ... I know, you weren't looking for a book as to why I think my recipe is worth using, but, I've been recommending it a lot lately and am feeling a little self conscious :)

No worries at all. I was actually hoping you'd respond to my question because I've seen so much helpful advice in your comment history and elsewhere in the world of pizza discussion.


>If you do go with my recipe, use the version from the source, as it has a bit more detail:
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,27591.msg279664.html

I've actually run into and read that post at least twice in my obsessing. I'll go with that version as you suggest. Since I'll be using the Blackstone, where would you suggest I set the heat and at what temperatures should I plan to launch?

>Are you sure your current peel is steel? What size is the blade?

I *was sure until you asked. I looked it up. It's aluminum. :/ New Star Foodservice 50158 26-Inch Aluminum Pizza Peeler with Wooden Handle and 12-Inch by 14-Inch Blade Since I will eventually use the wooden peel for launching, will this one suffice? The melting point should be okay at around 1,200 degrees.


>There's a couple Restaurant Depots there. Do you have a tax ID?

I do. The nearest Restaurant Depot is only about 40 miles from me, and I drive that direction often enough to drop by.

Thank you for the very thoughtful reply. I'm hoping to make my overly-ambitious start work out as smoothly as it can, and this reply will help.

As others have mentioned, get a peel. This one in Amazon has prime shipping and is $13. Others have said sprinkling some flour on it to help reduce friction, and it definitely works, but I prefer using a little bit of cornmeal. Experiment with either and you'll find what works best for you. After that, it's just practice, practice, practice. You'll learn to feel the consistency of the dough to know if you need to add more water or flour and get better at shaping it.

The best part is that even if you mess up, you'll still have a delicious pizza. More than once while learning I ended up with a messed up calzone instead of pizza. It was still great. And once you really get the hang of it it is amazing. I'm still learning, but that's half the fun. Here is a recent one of mine.

Very good question. I hate launching raw dough onto the steel with the aluminum peel I have. Dusting with flour or cornmeal makes a mess of the counter. Even with flour or cornmeal, little parts of the pie still stick almost every time. Blowing the board is not effective. Also, my peel is only 12 inches wide, which really isn't as big as I'd like to make pizzas in this style, so even a perfect raw launch isn't the only issue.

So, I launch on a screen, remove the pie from the screen after the bottom crust sets, and let it brown. I lose a little bottom browning this way, but the aggravation it saves me is worth it.

I know some people say wooden peels work better for launching and recommend getting one of each, but that's another expense. Maybe someday if I were convinced it would work. Something like the super peel seems great, but that's even more expensive, and, with a hot steel 6 inches under the broiler I'm not sure the super peel's mechanics would work all that well.

I have heard launching with parchment paper can be effective. I may try that.

Don't be shy with the flour, you can probably use even more than you already did. Some people will use cornmeal, but I don't like what it does to the texture of my pies.

Also, consider getting a wooden peel. There are some pretty affordable ones on Amazon, like this guy. Wood does a better job than metal does of keeping the crust dry and will transfer more easily. You should only use the peel to build and transfer the pie, not as a cutting board. You also don't want to wash the peel in water or oil it.

Another trick is to build the pie toward the front edge of the peel, rather than the middle. If you want, you can lift the edge of the dough and blow an air bubble underneath which will also help it slide.

Lastly, once you stretch the dough and start building the pizza, the clock is ticking. Try not to keep the pie on the peel more than 3-4 minutes before you transfer to the oven.

There's a lot there and you don't need to do all of these things at once--I hope you find something that suits your style.

Absolutely, you need to heat a pizza steel (the 1/4 inch "baking steel" style, not a pizza pan) for at least 30 minutes. I like to go to 550F but 500 should be minimum. A pizza stone, on the other hand, takes 45 minutes to an hour to heat up to the right temp.

You need to have the pizza directly on the stone or steel for it to help your pizza quality out. You can use a pizza peel with a little practice--this style with a canvas belt works great for beginners. Or, you can use parchment paper, but make sure to take the parchment off from underneath the crust as soon as it is easy to slide out. Just a few minutes into cooking.

I was posting this up last year for people come xmas time. Hopefully it helps depending on what she likes to bake.

Bread:

• A really nice lame 1
  
• Bannetons 1
  
• A couche 1
  
• Large dutch oven
  
• Pizza stone 1
  
• Peel 1
  
  Cookies:
  
  
• Kopykake (Note buying it new is pricey but these can sometimes be found used for $50 and still in nearly mint condition!)
  
• This awesome cookie sheet 1
  
  Cake:
  
  
• Silicon molds 1
  
• Ring molds 1
  
• Acetate
  
• Airbrush
  
• Portion marker 1
  
  General kitchen stuff:
  
  
• Whetstones
  
• Glass mixing bowls
  
• Really nice rolling pin
  
• Chef knife
  
• Bread knife
  
• Kitchen scale
  
• Cookbooks!! (Textbooks are great to!)
  
• Deepfryer
  
• Marble board
  
• Ramekins
  
  Some of the links might be dead, havent really checked
  
  As far as new and fancy things go, there really isn't all that much out there for us bakers. You savory guys get all the fun toys.

This will probably have a lot of people up in arms, but here it goes. If you’re running low on time and energy to roll and prep a pizza, and have the Papa Murphy’s take and bake chain in your location, their large thin crust pizzas turn out amazing on the egg. Bonus, at least in my area, they sell them for $5 every Friday. For anyone unfamiliar with Papa Murphy’s, they are made to order pizzas, but you pick them up uncooked.

I use this modern wonder to take them off the cardboard thing they come on and transfer them to the stone in my egg.

EXO Non-Stick Polymer Sealed Super Peel Pizza Peel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NGOOM6K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_VpfrDbMK956CK

It's really important not to load too many toppings on. Go easy. Also, you should build the pizza quickly. Wait til the oven is ready, roll the pizza out, and then GO GO GO! Get the toppings on quick before the dough sticks.

People mentioned cornmeal, which is a good plan for novices. If you really want to be serious about it though, you need a perforated pizza peel. You generously flour your prep area, roll the dough out, build the pizza right there on the counter, and then you slip your perforated peel under it, give it a shake so the excess flour falls through the perforations, and then slide it onto the stone. This is the way to get the perfect crispy bready crust, without too much burnt flour (which is bitter) and without cornmeal (which is a different texture).

It looks well cooked, except for the cheese half, yeah? Maybe tent some foil over that side next time?


As for a clean transfer in order to keep things round (if that's where you're having problems) I've had good luck with this peel and good old corn meal.

Also recommend the Super Peel I love mine! Great gift (for those that bake using stones etc. rather than Dutch Ovens)

Looks good! I would personally have let mine cook just a tad longer, but I like mine a little crispy. If making pizza is something you really enjoy, I'd suggest getting a pizza stone and a peel. Preheating your oven with the stone in there for a while lets you get the surface really hot, then you drop the pie on there with the peel, and that's how you can get a good crispy bottom. I dunno, that's how my Sicilian cousin taught me to make it. Also, get some basil!

You'll be needing a pizza stone and a pizza peel. Use the stone every time you bake pizza, to season it. Even if you're heating up a boxed pizza, use the damn stone.

Next, you want to make sure you're using a good recipe. This is one that I have used. It's damn good. Just follow the directions.

As for sauce, I prefer a white sauces to red, but that's entirely up to you. Find a recipe that you fancy, learn it, and be ready to use it.

As for the rest of the ingredients, I'm not going to tell you to spend a bucketful of money to make a pizza, but better quality ingredients yield better flavor. Keep that in mind.

If you want to make pizza at home on a regular basis, I'd go to a gourmet/kitchen shop and get a stone and a peel.

The other piece of equipment I like is a Kitchenaid mixer. I can do it by hand, but it makes a bigger mess. Using the mixer with a dough hook, I can make a 2-pizza batch of dough, get it in the refrigerator (to let it rise for a day), and clean up in 30 minutes, and that's counting 15 minutes to let the dough rest in the mixing bowl before mixing again.

Watch some Youtube videos. Youtube is a great resource for techniques.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efw5NLf004o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrEmMXSgRmU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxx2BB_PSY

I worked in a pizza place in highschool and learned the awesomeness that is the pizza peel. Great for pizza, obviously, but comes in handy for getting other stuff out too. Getting a wooden one is nice because cleaning flour and whatnot off of it is as easy as getting a knife and planing it off. They make them in aluminum too, but they're more expensive.

You lightly flour or apply cornmeal to the peel (very lightly) and before you put in the pizza you give the peel a quick twist to dislodge any sticky doughy bits, and it slides right in. Same for getting it out again!

Thanks for the help. I ended up buying AM 2616 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001MRSKM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

​

Should we add a peel recommendation thing in the Resources? Thoughts on a "recommended gear guide" like r/coffee - https://www.reddit.com/r/Coffee/wiki/index#wiki_gear

Wait, so you assemble the pizza on the stone, then put them into the preheated oven together? You'll never get a crispy crust like that because the stone takes so long to heat up.

What you want to do is let the stone preheat in the oven, then add the pizza on top. Use a pizza peel for ease of transfer and burn prevention. In a pinch I've used lipless cookie sheets and good heat resistant gloves.

Your pizza looks great but the dough looks under cooked. Consider this constructive critisim. Full disclosure, I am a Pizza man. Please for all that is holy never ever ever cook a pizza in a pan again.
Get a Baking stone and a [peel] (http://www.amazon.com/New-Low-Price-Solid-Cherry/dp/B003J81IKG/ref=sr_1_12?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1344003288&sr=1-12&keywords=pizza+peel)
then you will get results like this.

We bought one of these a long time ago, amazing bit of kit. I use it for everything, sandwiches, lunch meat, pretty much anything i cut i cut with these, because they are that awesome. Waffles and pancakes were my first experiment with non-pizza subjects, and it's indeed a pro-tip.

I really do want the baking steel, but it doesn't make sense to me to spend that much money on a piece of metal with a brand name. I just want to know if the difference in quality of the results between the baking steel and the cast iron pan I found is worth the doubling in price between the two.

I already have a metal pizza peel. It's this one. It works fine for me. But I am curious now, is there a difference to using a wooden peel vs. a metal one in terms of the results?

My wife was nice enough to snag a super peel for me. You're a little limited when it comes to the size of the pizza you can make, but the thing is great for getting pizza on to my stone.

I got a super peel last Christmas because I was mangling half my pizzas. It is a wood peel with a piece of linen that acts like a conveyor belt. It was recommended by America's Test Kitchen.

https://www.amazon.com/Super-Peel-Pizza-Solid-White/dp/B001T6OVPO

I would post the dough recipe but I had to Frankenstein it a little bit due to my initial batch having bad yeast. I think in the end I would say it had ~85% 00 Flour and ~15% King Arthur Bread Flour. Hydration was probably close to 55-60% and since the first batch was bad this had no time to cold rise so it proofed at room temp for ~1 hour.

Here is a link to the grill attachment.

Also sorry for the shit pictures - was super excited to devour this. I’ll get more next time.

This peel happens to be Epicurean. It's definitely knife friendly since it isn't really wood. More info here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PRI3TS/

This is the most painful thing a pizzamaker can experience. I know that feel, bro.

If you've gone and bought a stone, treat yourself and buy a peel. I like
this one -- it's got a sweet conveyor belt-like system, so you don't really even have to mess around with jiggling the pie off the peel like you would if you under-semolina'd a metal or wooden peel.

This is what you need, learned about this from America's test kitchen.

EXO Polymer Sealed Super Peel Pizza Peel
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NGOOM6K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_qmhuxb4PB5M6F

The importance of a baking stone or baking steel is that you don't want to put a pizza in a hot oven with a cold surface that it's sitting on. Say you take a baking sheet with the pizza and toss it in an oven at 450, the baking sheet is going to absorb the heat, and take awhile to get up to temperature, and the bottom of the crust will not get heated at the same speed as the rest of the pizza. This results in a soggy feeling pizza.

Now if you have a baking stone or steel, you let them preheat with the oven. So when you put the pizza on the stone or steel, the crust will get cooked just as rapidly as the rest of the pizza.

The key is getting a pizza peel so that you can transfer the prepared pizza to the pizza stone or steel.

link to the pizza peel I got

hey, we keep the ol' questions in the bi-weekly threads (stickied at the top of the main feed.)

That being said, check out these two peels:

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0001MRSKM
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0037XFTTY
  
  Like /u/RockinghamRaptor said, the wood is for launching (dust it with semolina) and the metal is for retrieving / rotating.
  

Nice cutting board $100

Food mill $50

Cream whipper $30

Grill pan $33

Peel $60

Kitchenaid meat grinder/sausage stuffer $60

Culinary torch $20

r/pizza to learn how to make it.

Get 6 unglazed quarry tiles from a home improvement store. http://imgur.com/a/pe8VU A fraction of the cost of a pizza stone, and works the same.

Then you need is a pizza peel.

Bread flour, yeast, pizza sauce, mozz & ingredients of your choice.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002JPJ0QY?cache=9ce409a8f8c7a3f2b7f5331da7bac609&pi=SX200_QL40&qid=1407030740&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1

Only $25, and I find metal works a lot better than wood.

If you're going to make this into a hobby, and you're willing to spend more money, I highly recommend the Super Peel. It takes virtually all of the anxiety and failure out of transferring the pizza to your stone. I am not a fan of using parchment paper as I tend to cook pizza at temperatures which burn the paper and impart a foul odor on the pizza itself.


Demo Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cepy0tSu88
Buy it here: http://www.superpeel.com/
Or here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001T6OVPO

That cloth spins around so that I can easily get it from the cloth onto the stone in the oven.

Check out this link: http://www.amazon.com/EXO-Super-Pizza-Solid-White/dp/B001T6OVPO/ref=sr_1_10?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1381800267&sr=1-10&keywords=pizza+peel

Get pizza peel with conveyor belt, build pizza on belt and easily slide it in to oven.

https://www.amazon.com/EXO-Non-Stick-Super-Peel-Composite/dp/B00CLS8LLE/ref=asc_df_B00CLS8LLE/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=193129986239&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3894195540959087619&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9021455&hvtargid=pla-309035916144&psc=1

A good peel is critical to a good launch. Counterintuitively, the best peels are often the cheapest actually because they are the least fancy. A soft more porous birchwood peel such as: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009LPDNPO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Mq2PDbJY50QEY

The wood must be porous because the porosity allows for the excess water from the dough to be absorbed. The excess water is what causes sticking. Once i switched to birchwood, launching was never an issue again. I find the longer peels are easier to launch with but a lot of people may need to get a short one due to a kitchen island blocking the way. Also, you should probably get a peel the size of your cooking surface or perhaps slightly bigger if you ever intend to switch to a larger surface.

I cheat. I use the Exo Super Peel Pizza Peel. It has a rolling belt of nonstick material around it, you basically just roll the pizza directly onto the stone. It sounds weird but it works.

http://www.amazon.com/EXO-Super-Pizza-Solid-White/dp/B001T6OVPO

you could get this style of peel http://smile.amazon.com/Super-Peel-Pizza-Solid-White/dp/B001T6OVPO?sa-no-redirect=1
you just make the pizza on the peel and you use the cloth to slide the pizza right in the oven

Get him a pizza peel. (The thing you use to take the pizza out of the oven)

http://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Supply-14-Inch-16-Inch-Aluminum/dp/B002JPJ0QY/ref=lp_383851011_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1418604835&sr=1-1

I feel that I should buy this for you.

Kitchen Supply 14-Inch x 16-Inch Aluminum Pizza Peel with Wood Handle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002JPJ0QY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Dbpiyb05YNEVF

Did you use a peel?

Launch peel - https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/epicurean-reg-natural-pizza-peel/1014457607

Turning peel - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FNU6GG/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_85PiDbC04E1HS

It's a pizza peel

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009LPDSAY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_eX92AbGE2Y3KS

I have the Lodge with the lip and this pizza peel makes using it a breeze. I just realized it's a little pricey (got it as a gift) but it really is all that and a bag of chips. Perfect placement every time with no stress induced sweating.

Homemade pizza. I have the pizza stone. I have the pizza peel. I have all the necessary accoutrements for making the bestest pizza.

I have NEVER ONCE successfully completed the transfer from peel to stone. I know all the secrets to how to do it, watched all the videos. It never works. Gonna try this next. I'm not hopeful.

Nope! Pretty sure it's this one. I'll double-check tomorrow morning and let you know!

I just use this.. I have no troubles with pizza stickage anymore.