Any preference wood or metal I’ve noticed metal seems lighter, but is there any difference other than that
Thanks for the comments
CaptSammy
Usually metal peels are for pulling the finished pie out the oven and wood ones are for making them.
I prefer wood
Sammy;
The metal peels are best used to remove the pizzas from the oven and the wood ones are best used to put them into the oven. This is due to the fact that there is a greater chance of the dough skin sticking to the metal peel, even with the use of a peel dust. The short handle peels serve well as prep peels, allowing you to have several pizzas on the prep table at one time without the need of worrying about where all those handles are pointed. To use the short handle prep peel, you drop the pizza onto the deck just inside the door/opening of the oven, leaving it there for about 30 to 45-seconds (if you try to move it any sooner it will stick to the deck, leaving a hole in the center of the crust) then using a metal peel, move the pizza to the next baking position. If you are hand slapping/formijng the dough skins, try drawing a series on concentric circles, using a permenant marking pen, with a circle for each size pizza you make. This will provide an easy to use reference in sizing your dough skins on the peels.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
If you are using screens I would say go with metal as the wood ones will bang up the screens because they don’t slip under them very well.
True, if you are using screens, then you don’t need prep peels, and again the metal peels are used to remove the pizzas from the oven. Like I said, I never like to use wood peels to remove the pizzas from the oven.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
I use a metal peel with screens. I always use the screens to make it so the pizza is nice and sturdy when I put it in the oven to begin with. Just seems to get rid of alot of problems. Though if I am not using a screen at home or something I prefer a nice wood peel for my home creations.
I could not find an existing topic about this but didn’t want to start a new one for something sort of closely related.
I am wondering about peel size.
I’m using the wooden American Metalcraft peels and bought a 20". I want to make 16", and I have not decided on 18" pizzas yet. The 20" peel seems quite large (especially considering the oven is only 40" wide), but is only 20" if you include the beveled ends of it. Do you stretch the dough out onto the beveled portion, or no?
You probably won’t believe this, but we got written up by Bartow County health department for using wooden peels. I told them might as well always take off the 2 points because I am not changing. I still use wood to put in, metal to remove the pies.
Here is a trick for making pizzas on a wood peel. Clean the peel thoroughly (sand paper works well) then, place a pizza circle on the peel of the size you want to make. Using a Sharpie pen, draw a line around the circle. You can do this for different sizes on the same peel. Now you have an outline to serve as a guide when stretching out your pizza skins.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor