You’ve made your dough days in advance, have your sauce together, cheese grated, oven preheated - it’s show time!

You calmly begin pressing the air out of your dough to the edges, forming a rim. You begin a few stretches and would you look at that, a circle! Quick, before something happens, sauce it and top it!

Excellent, now all that needs to be done is transferring that pizza from your counter top to your oven. Easy enough? You grab your metal peel, throw some all purpose flour on it, slide your pizza onto it, pick it up and walk to your oven.

NASA, we are clear for launch.

One jerk, nothing. Another. Uh-oh - this thing is stuck. You frantically lift up a corner and toss flour under it, hoping to hit that soul crushing sticky spot. Back to the oven, you give it a jerk. Nothing again. You being shaking it back and forth, toppings start flying all over the place, but wait, what was that? Movement! You quickly move it to the back of the oven, give it a confident shake and voila!

A calzone.

Covered in raw flour.

So where did this go wrong? The dough - perfect, the sauce - sweet and tangy, the toppings - picturesque, and you even used flour to dust the metal peel! What gives?

The peel. Acommonly overlooked piece of the puzzle when it comes to making pizza. Dough recipes, sauce recipes, expensive cheeses, hot ovens, steels - all important in making delicious pizzas - become a waste of money and time when you don’t have the proper tool for getting that soon to be incredible pizza into the oven.

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Wooden peels:

Wooden peels, used by pizzerias across the world, are wonderful for launching pizza. They are naturally the least sticky of any peel given their relative coarse surface compared to metal peels. With a slight dusting of flour they become the perfect vehicle for launching. Wooden peels have some weight to them, but that weight also allows them to be able to handle larger and heavier pizzas loaded with toppings.

With anything, there are some drawbacks. A wooden peel benefits greatly from a dusting of flour, but using too much means raw flour can cake onto the bottom of the pizza.

You’re also unable to easily slide a pizza from the counter to peel as wooden peels are too thick - toppings would roll off as the pizza is slid on. Therefore building the pizza on the peel works well, but if you aren’t experienced with topping, i.e. fast enough, the dough can stick to the peel, ensuring a disaster.

Lastly, you can’t easily remove a pizza with a wooden peel. It’s thickness becomes a major disadvantage when trying to slide it under the cooked pizza and steel.

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Metal peels:

Metal peels, while popular and maybe the first peel a home pizza maker purchases, are actually HORRIBLE for launching pizzas. Due to their very shiny and surface, pizza dough practically suction cups to them.

Of course everyone knows to use some flour to assist with launching, but the amount of flour needed for a metal peel to successfully launch a pizza is to the point where it negatively affects the pizza’s bottom, almost always with caked on raw flour.

So toss the metal peel in the trash? Absolutely not! How are you going to get the pizza out of your oven? A thin, lightweight, metal peel is the perfect tool for removing a pizza from the oven.

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Perforated metal peels:

Somewhat new to the world of pizza, perforated metal peels (metal peels with slots cut into them) are very popular with Neapolitan pizzas. Very light and thin, they can be slid right underneath a pizza to load it or the pizza can easily be dragged onto it.

The perforations in the peel mean less metal is touching the actual bottom of the pizza and they allow excess flour to shake off in the process of taking it from peel to oven.

They don’t do well with larger, heavier pizzas and pizzas shouldn’t be topped on them as the longer a pizza sits on it the higher chance it has of sticking and sinking into the perforations.

If baking pizzas in the 10”-13” diameter range, a perforated metal peel may be the best of what wooden peels have to offer in terms of launching while having the ability to remove pizzas as well. Light, thin, and shiny - what’s not to like?

Now that there’s an understanding of the various peels and how best to utilize them, matching peel to pizza style should be relatively straightforward.

Wooden pizza peels are the most versatile - New York, Neapolitan, Artisan, New Haven, and more are all pizzas that easily launch with a wooden peel.

Being mindful of how much flour you use to dust the peel is important as too much flour will absolutely ruin a perfectly launched pizza. Too little flour and sticking is a concern. Most pizzas need to be built on the peel as sliding them onto them becomes trickier due to their thickness.

Perforated metal peels are wonderful for their light weight, thinness, and slots that allow pizzas to be launched with little sticking and small amounts of flour. They work best for smaller pizzas, like Neapolitans or other pizzas in the 10”-13” range. The more toppings (weight) on the pizza the quicker you need to get to the oven and launch, but otherwise they are capable of handling any style a wooden peel can. Their ability to also remove pizzas from the oven makes them an all-around wonderful peel.

Solid metal peels are wonderful for removing any kind of pizza from the oven, and that’s it. A 12” metal peel is strong enough to remove pizzas up to 18” in diameter, but cannot reliably handle launching even a 10” pizza. These should not be used to launch pizzas, but are wonderful tools to have on hand when it comes time to take them out of the oven.

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Dusting your Peel:

Dusting your peel with something to assist in the launching of your pizza will help it release cleanly from the peel, keep its shape, keep your toppings in place, and make you look like a pro.

Wheat flour is most commonly used by pizzerias to dust their peels as they have it in abundance. Using a light dustingof flour and smoothing it over the peel with your hand is typically all that is needed to successfully launch a pizza.

When done properly, your pizza will have a nicely browned bottom and little to no traces of flour. As flour absorbs moisture, it can become sticky if the pizza is left on the peel for too long. Some then use even more flour to compensate for this. Unfortunately, using too much of it can result in raw flour being caked to the bottom of the pizza (does not taste good!) and even burning.

While dusting with the proper amount of flour may take a little practice, the effort is rewarded with beautiful undercarriages.

See pictures below:

Pizza 1 and 2: These two pizzas used too much flour on their peel, showing signs of paleness and caked on raw flour.

Pizza 3 and 4: These two pizzas used the proper amount of flour, showing nicely browned bottoms and little to no traces of flour:

Semolina flour is a common flour used for dusting peels to assist with launching. As it is a much coarser flour, the small granules act like marbles, helping the pizza slide off the peel. As semolina contains gluten forming proteins, it adheres to the underside of the pizza as it comes into contact with moisture. If too much is used, you can affect the texture of the bottom of the pizza, possibly changing the characteristics of the style you are attempting to make.

Rimacinata Semolina flour is a popular option used when launching Neapolitan pizzas as it is very finely ground and can helps to avoid the “crunch balls” on the bottom of your pizza that other coarser semolina flours may leave.

A perforated metal peel will help to remove excess semolina flour before launching, but even then a portion of the semolina flour will remain on your steel, building up over the course of a few pizzas and possibly burning.

Some enjoy the additional texture semolina gives a pizza, and coupled with the ease of launching, semolina can be an affective tool in launching pizzas worry free.

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White Rice flour is another flour that is very helpful in launching pizzas. Not as commonly used as semolina flour, it could be argued that it is superior to semolina flour for launching pizzas. It is finer than semolina and doesn’t contain gluten forming proteins meaning it won’t become sticky when it comes into contact with moisture.

Therefore, it won’t absorb into the bottom of the pizza, keeping the texture of the pizza unaffected. Additionally, it is able to withstand the higher temperatures of steel and not burn.

See pictures below:

Image 1 and 2: Undercarriage of a pizza baked on a steel that used semolina flour on launch (left) and excess semolina flour leftover on the steel (right).

Image 3 and 4: Undercarriage of a pizza baked on a steel that used white rice flour on launch.

Let’s use the peels!

The following videos demonstrate different techniques for loading and launching a pizza as well as the recommended peel:

Loading the Perforated Peel - Dragging

Thanks to the thinness of the peel, simply drag the pizza onto it and adjust to a circle.

Great for heavier pizzas with lots of toppings where a jerking motion would disrupt it, shimmying the pizza as you slowly pull back allows the pizza to maintain its shape while successfully launching, even if it somewhat initially sticks to the peel.

When starting out, using parchment paper to assist with launchingcan be a helpful method. Build the pizza on the parchment paper, load it onto your peel, and launch. Parchment paper is rated safe up to 425F, but this pizza was baked in a 550F oven for 4 minutes with no issue. If planning on using the broiler, slide the parchment paper out from under the pizza after the crust has set.

When starting out, using parchment paper to assist with launchingcan be a helpful method. Build the pizza on the parchment paper, load it onto your peel, and launch. Parchment paper is rated safe up to 425F, but this pizza was baked in a 550F oven for 4 minutes with no issue. If planning on using the broiler, slide the parchment paper out from under the pizza after the crust has set.