Toppings

T

TheFlyingPig

New member
Help. Toppings keep flying off my pizza as I slid the pizza off the peel. I use a lot of dust & a slight jerking motion, but it still happens. Help me with a better technique.
 
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I use 100% cornmeal and they slide off pretty smoothly.

I think Tom Lehman’s recommendation is for 50% cornmeal and 50% flour (I think, hopefully he’ll come by and verify that.)

You might just need MORE of your dusting mix to make sure they slide easily.
 
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Actually, no amount of flour, corn meal, or semolina will help if you are leaving that skin on the peel for too long. Working on speed is low hanging fruit. The typical pizza guy can easily shave 30-40% off their load times with a bit of practice. Domino’s does it for a reason (it works). Grab a timer and make a chart. You will quickly see that what gets measured gets improved.
 
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I sometimes have the same problem but what has helped me & my staff is just gently tapping the toppings into the pie just before putting it in the oven, this is especially helpful on my “combo” pizza. I usually just do the front 1/2 where most of the toppings seem to come off.
 
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We have several techniques for getting them off the way they were made. The most common is to go backwards for a couple of inches before you go forwards, in other words slide the pizza back towards you a bit before you put it in, that helps to break it free. Also, sometimes it is better to use a series of quick pullbacks versus one fast motion, we call that the “machine-gun”. Finally, some of my kids have had success with putting the board at an angle, say 4 o’clock looking down at it, then slapping the handle into their other hand. It effectively turns the pizza a bit, which again helps to break it free. I’ve never been able to do that one. As was previously mentioned, the quicker it comes off the board the better. I use a mix of fine and coarse cornmeal.
 
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I typically use a blend made with equal parts (by volume) you don’t hear me say that very often, of corn meal, semolina, and regular pizza flour. I’ve found that this works very well for me on a wood prep peel. Dough skins can be a bit problematic with adhering to matel peels at times. This is why I only use a metal peel to remove the pizzas from the oven. In with wood, out with metal.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Thanks everyone. I had better success last night. I used Thunderman’s “machine-gun” method & it worked great. Also used more dust on the peel. Again, thanks for everyone’s help! 😃
 
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