Pizza Peel is a really important tool for baking pies. If you want to cook a perfect pizza then it is important that you invest in the right pizza peel
Now, there are mainly two kinds of pizza peel that you can get for your kitchen. One is the wooden peel and the other one is a metallic peel.
Using both the peels is pretty easy and they are going to really help you get your pizza inside the oven and even turn it around when needed.
So, getting started with how you can best use your pizza peels follow the following steps-
1. Stretch out your dough and then carefully place it on your pizza peel.
2. Before placing your stretched pizza dough on the peel, make sure that you have spread a mixture of dough and semolina on the peel so that the pizza dough does not stick.
3. Now, once you have done so, start spreading the sauce and the toppings on the pizza.
4. Make sure you do step 3 really quick because if the dough stays on the peel for longer, there is a possibility that it may stick.
5. Once you are done with it just shake the pizza a little bit on the peel so that you know it is not stuck before you go ahead and put it on the pizza stone.
6. Slowly place the pizza inside the oven by doing a back and forth movement on the pizza peel.
This way you are not going to drop any of the toppings inside the oven and you neatly place the pizza inside the oven as well.
7. Take the peel and turn around the pizza once it is halfway done so that the pizza is evenly cooked on all sides.
How to avoid the pizza dough getting stuck on the pizza peel?
The secret to this is that you need to dust the peel with a mixture of dough and semolina before you place the pizza on the peel.
Also, make sure that you do not keep the dough for too long on the pizza peel because as soon as the dough loses its moisture, it tends to stick on the peel.
Now if you keep these two things in mind, I’m pretty sure you are not going to have any issues while you transfer the pizza from the peel to the oven.
Another few points that you can keep in mind is not to use a lot of toppings and overload the pizza as that might make it difficult to move the pizza.
Also, make sure that you do not drop any sauce on the peel as that can cause the dough to stick especially when you are transferring it to the pizza stone.
Which Pizza Peel is better?
There are two kinds of pizza peel and one would be the wooden pizza peel while the other has to be the metal pizza peel with an insulated handle.
Now, there are many who use only the metal pizza peel these days and if you consider my opinion then the metal pizza peel is more than enough.
The wooden pizza peel is perfect to transfer the pizza to the oven. Since the wooden pizza peel is more insulated it avoids the pizza dough from sticking.
This way you have a slightly longer timeframe to spread your sauce and put toppings of your choice.
The metal peel will just do fine but you are going to need to dust the dough and semolina mixture thoroughly before placing the pizza and work a little quicker.
The Metal peel is useful to turn the pizza around in the oven and even take it out from the oven once done.
The wooden pizza peel is not that great when it comes to the above two functionality. You can use it anyhow but I would recommend the metal pizza peel for turning your pizza around.
If you want you can get the wooden pizza peel to put the pizza in the oven and the metal peel for the rest.
But if you are on a budget then I would suggest, just get the metal pizza peel and you would be able to use it anyway.
Perforated pizza peels!
Now there are perforated pizza peels and normal pizza peels, the perforated pees are supposed to remove the excess cornmeal and dough dust that might be at the bottom of the pizza.
however, if you are a beginner then there are chances that the dough might stick in the perforations making it really difficult to get the pizza on the oven.
In my opinion, the dough and the cornmeal do not really taste that bad when cooked with the pizza.
I do not specifically recommend the perforated peel but you can get it and if you follow the tips and suggestions in the post then you would not have any issues using it.
How to clean the pizza peel?
Cleaning the pizza peel is pretty easy as you just need some soap and water and you can clean it.
You might want to be careful while cleaning the wooden peel as make sure you don’t completely submerge it in water.
Just clean it with some water and soap and make sure it is completely dry before you use it again.
Cleaning the metal peel is far easier than the wooden peel. I would choose the metal peel any day but if you want to get things done easily then you can get both.
Pizza Peel for a wood-fired pizza oven
Wood-fired pizza ovens are pretty large and you are going to need a long pizza peel for them.
Another pizza peel that you can use is a rotating pizza peel so that you can turn around the pizza inside the oven without removing it out of the oven and turning it on the peel.
This way you are not going to have to remove every pizza from the oven and you would be able to turn around multiple pizzas within no time.
Rotating pizza peels are perfect for large ovens or when you are cooking more than one pizza at a time.
In any case, if you do not want to remove the pizza completely out and turn it around on the peel manually then you can go for this option.
The rotating pizza peel is good for cooking the pizza inside the oven and you cannot use it to put the pizza in the oven.
So this is going to be like an additional peel that you need.
I hope this gives you all the information you need about using a pizza peel perfectly and if you think I have missed something then let me know in the comments below!
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