PIZZA PEEL - WOOD or ALUMINUM

[m1mckinlay]

I have both wooden and aluminum peels to assemble and slide the pizzas into the oven. The wood ones work MUCH better. The dough rarely sticks to the wood one - making it easy to slide into the oven - but it ALWAYS sticks to the aluminum even using the same amount of flour / cornmeal as a "lubricant". For this reason, I don't use the aluminum one at all anymore.

Also, for what it's worth, my wood peels have 36" handles, but I find the long handles get in the way when preparing the pizzas. I think you could toss the pizzas in a 40" oven using a peel with a 12" handle with a little practice and eliminate a bunch of accidents a 36 incher tends to cause in the prep area.

The ss peel you use to turn the pizzas in the oven does need a long handle.

[wotavidone]

A question chaps. These wooden peels - are they varnished or otherwise sealed? I would imagine that unsealed timber would absorb a little moisture from the dough, and perhaps be better than a sealed surface which would keep the moisture right there, and make the underside of the dough sticky?
Regards,
Mick

[TropicalCoasting]

Dont imagine varnish would last long in a WFO or be healthy

I was wondering what handle do you put on a peel
I lit a big fire yesterday and moved stuff around with a metal handled rake and it got pretty hot pretty quick.
Wood with a hollow metal end sounds right
How much metal so the wood doesn't burn?

[kmrice]

No varnish. Just dust well with flour - rice flour works best. I use about 50/50 rice and regular flour.

Karl

[roobqn]

While I get my wooden peels local at restuarant supply stores, I went to Frankie G's website to get the perforated Napoletana and banjo peels. I build on the wood peel, transfer to the Napoletana peel to shake off excess flour and then load into the oven. The banjo is to turn and unload. Seems lke alot to load a pie, but it does avoid alot of burnt flour on the oven floor. Take a look at FG Pizza & Italian - Woodfired - Pizza - Bread - Italian and nope don't work for them in any way shape or form, just think Frankie and Gail are good people and have had nothing but great products from them. He is also a forum member I believe.