Wood or metal peel

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi,

I'm trying to make pizza without parchment. I only have metal peels since my wood one bit the dust many years ago. I am using lots of bread flour and the dough still sticks.

Would wood stick less? Would a different flour like rice flour work better? My dough is usually about 70% hydration and I could drop it to 65.

Thanks

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[chocomouse]

I've always used a wood peel, lightly dusted with semolina. It's worked fine for me.

[Mike Nolan]

I have both, which one I use depends on the size of the pizza. Dough will stick to either type, in my experience.

Pizza on the grill is on my 'try soon' list. Obviously that's a 'no parchment' environment.

I've been looking at a baking steel and the one I'm looking at (16x20) has an option for an oversized peel. I don't know if it is metal or wood, though. We've had some unexpected expenses lately, though, and the baking steel may have to wait.'

I usually use corn meal but I've been told rice flour is best.

[rottiedogs]

Pizza on the grill is divine. I build the pizza directly on my pizza stone and then pop it on the grill for 18 minutes or so. I use exclusively charcoal so the hot coals are in a circle at the outer edge of the grate with a big space in the middle with no direct heat.

Once the pizza is done it slides right off the stone with just a regular metal spatula onto a pizza pan. I don't use cornmeal or anything else on the stone. I do it this way when I make pizza in the oven too. Nothing ever sticks to it. I think the first couple of times way back when a couple of spots might have stuck but not for a very long time.

If I had an actual pizza oven (very wishful thinking) I would have to use a peel. I'd be leaning towards wood. We had friends who owned a pizza parlor business in the city and they swore by wood peels. Could just have been their personal preference though.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks everyone!

I may go back to wood. We're looking at an outdoor pizza oven and if we have outdoor parties wood peels are great for presentation. I may buy one to try it.

I've never tried semolina for dusting but maybe I will. It's more expensive here (I know we're close Choco) so the few times I've used it I haven't used it for dusting. Also, for some reason, my family does not like it when I have used it. They have liked it other places.

I've never tried the grill. The people I know who use their grills here use gas grills so it won't have your flavor, Rottie, and they grill the bread then build the pizza. I have experimented with par-baking crusts to shorten times and to get a crisper crust. But things don't really meld together. I make five or six pizzas at a time (sometimes more) so I would need multiple stones to do this. Here in Connecticut coal-fired pizza is typical so I wonder how it compares to charcoal. The grill's big advantage is how hot it can get but I've just learned how to adjust the heat on my ovens past the factory settings so while it would only go to 450 before I now have it at 550. With our last ovens I had one at 800.

I started with cornmeal many years ago before I used parchment. It's good but it is very messy (or I am very messy or both ;-)). We have soft, wood floors and cornmeal actually gouges them. In high heat I've had the cornmeal catch on fire.

I've been thinking about rice flour too, Mike. The last two bakers I've worked with both use it for dusting. They say 1) it sticks less than bread flour because it lacks gluten and 2) it is less likely to catch fire than wheat flour. I don't know if either of these are true but two bakers running successful bakeries swear by it. I read an article that says I can make my own using a blender and rice so that would be nice as well.

Again, thanks for all your replies.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron--I haven't tried using a peel for pizza except with parchment paper for the initial set, but some years ago, I was using one to bake round bread loaves on a pizza stone after letting them rise in a basket and turning it out. I think that I used cornmeal, and yes, it went all over the oven. At the time, I was in an apartment with an older oven, so I had an aluminum liner on the bottom, which helped contain the mess, although not completely.

When I began to use clay bakers, I tried semolina, but my experience is that it burns, not a taste I wanted, while I was waiting for the bread to bake completely.

These days, I use cream of wheat (farina), the regular breakfast stuff from the store. I got the tip from a King Arthur article some years ago. The farina does not burn like the semolina did; of course, a loaf of bread bakes longer than a pizza.

Thanks for the comment about the hot grains on the wood floor. We have an ash floor in the kitchen, which while it is a hard wood could be damaged. (It's also my husband's pride and joy, so I respect it.)

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. Ash is pretty tough. I had an ash floor in my kitchen in Seattle and I miss it. Any floor can be wrecked and if you have slippers on and step on corn meal you won't feel it and you'll grind it into the floor. We have pine now (it's a long story).

Of course I know what Cream of Wheat is. I even know the radio jingle from the 30s thanks to my dad!

[navlys]

The wooden peel make a nice Holiday charcuterie board too! I always use parchment when I make pizza. Easy to slide onto my stone and easy to pull off.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I 've recently stopped using parchment to make a crisper bottom.

[Mike Nolan]

Until I get a baking steel, my options for the grill are:

1. Just put it directly on the grate. The gaps might be a bit wide for pizza, though. I haven't had a burger fall through the gaps yet, but I'm careful placing things on the grill.

2. Use a sheet pan, possibly my perforated half-sheet pan.

3. Use my old unglazed floor tiles. They always slid around a bit in the grill, so I didn't use them much there.

4. Use the Bakerstone pizza baker. (It won't hold more than about a 10" diameter pizza, though.)

5. I've got some grids that fit a full sheet pan (18x24), I think the bakery I bought them from (at an auction) used them as cooling or icing racks, they're 3 squares to the inch so they should hold a pizza easily. I've used them when roasting bones in the oven for stock so I'm pretty sure they're oven safe, but the grill can get really hot. They're kind of a pain to clean, so I don't use them a lot, but if I'm careful when putting a pizza on them they might not get very dirty.

It also just occurred to me that I might be able to build the pizza directly on the cooling rack, then just carry it out and place it on the grill carefully.

My metal and wood peels are both about 14x14, so they'd both handle about the same size pizza.

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