Getting Pizza off the Peel - Peel Skills
How do keep dough from sticking to the peel?
This question comes up all the time. I have put together some recommendations. This is a very common challenge when getting started, but there are straightforward solutions.
Hacks that are often mentioned (with the best intent):
Parchment: Let’s get parchment out of the way. Parchment is a fantastic invention for baking. We use parchment all of the time for cookies, vegetables, and other foods that cook below 450F degrees. Parchment is not recommended for cooking at high temperatures because it burns (read the box). You do not want the remnants of burned siliconized paper on the bottom of your pizza. The methods below will demonstrate how to transfer a pizza without parchment.
Metal screens: This is a plausible solution for baking pizzas. I used them when I worked at Dominoes. These are better than using parchment but are not necessary either.
Pull the stone out and place the pizza on it. Not a practical solution - and just plain unsafe.
Recommendations:
Our go-to method for transferring pizza into a hot oven is to slide it off of a peel. The video below shows how to get a dough ready for ingredients. There are some behind-the-scenes things to know.
The dough was dunked into that bowl of flour before it was stretched
The dough you see has been aged so that it has a slightly dry skin that was left intact when stretching.
This dough has also been allowed to rest and nearly reach room temperature so it is stable and the gluten isn’t shrinking it
The sprinkle of cornmeal or semolina flour on the peel acts like ball bearings under the dough (Do not put cornmeal or semolina on the stone)
With the dough on the peel, you can now add your toppings. (Make sure to clean off any drips of sauce and cheese that fall on the peel.)
Don’t let the pizza sit on the peel too long, the dough will start to stick.
After a night of cooking pizza, clean by wiping off the wooden peel with a damp sponge and air dry.
Apply Semolina/Cornmeal to wood peel
You can see how easy it is to slide a raw pizza into a hot oven. This is how pizza joints handle and cook pizza all day every day. It is straightforward, but it does take a little practice. You can practice pizza after pizza on your friends - they won’t mind!
What about those fancy Peels?
There are slotted aluminum peels favored by professional pizza chefs. The aluminum is specially treated to be “non-stick”. The slots assist in reducing the friction of the peel on the bottom of the dough. These slots also scrape the excess flour off the bottom of the raw pizza. Below is a slow-motion video to demonstrate the shoveling action of loading this type of peel. Some notes here:
You can not build a pizza on this type of peel. The peel is for transferring only. That is why this scooping is necessary.
You can see that the weight of ingredients matters for this kind of peel transfer. 12oz of meat and heavy sauce will be hard to scoop.
This peel is great for transferring a pie, but should be protected from too much heat exposure in the oven
Pizzaiolis will enlarge a pie by pulling and arranging the edges of the crust before loading in the oven.
As with wooden peels, the raw pie should not sit on the peel too long.
This peel requires more practice/skill
Transfer with a special metal peel
What if I am having trouble?
The more experience you have loading pizzas, the better you are at overcoming unexpected problems. Here are some tips for getting troublesome pizzas off the peel.
Get in the habit of moving quickly once the dough hits the wooden peel.
Wipe off your wooden peel and dust it with flour from time to time
Watch out for humidity. Cold dough in a hot, humid room will get moist
Chill the dough toward the end of an evening if it is getting too soft to work with.
Note from pizza to pizza if it is getting harder to load.
If a pizza is stuck, it may not slide off the peel - stop and take it back to the counter and try to get more semolina under it.
The image below is called “The Kiss”. you simply blow a bit of air under a pizza that has been sitting too long or seems to be sticking. Be careful as this sometimes floats the pizza right off the edge. This particular pizza sat for a long time. You can see that it took a lot of jiggling even after puffing air under it. More semolina would have helped too.
