December 12, 2019 - 10:55am
Best bread/pizza peel?
Hello, community! I have relatively recently found a passion for baking breads, and I am working on acquiring some great gear to help out with the process. Right now, I'm using a flat baking sheet and parchment paper to slide my breads and pizzas onto my baking stone, but I'm interested in getting a peel (I'm a bit worried about what the metal baking sheet is doing to the stone as it grinds against it when transferring the dough). I've looked around and there are SO MANY different peels on Amazon... does anyone have any recommendations about what type of peel to get? Wood or composite? What size is best? Any brands that people love and find reliable?
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Super Peel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=66&v=Jk786qxqfL4&feature=emb_logo
I was checking out the super peel a bit ago, but I came away feeling mixed. Do you own it? What do you prefer about it? Does the cloth ever cause problems with dough sticking to it?
Use a wood peel to put it into the oven and an aluminium peel to remove it.
Since I'm still quite a novice, may I ask why you would use an aluminum peel to remove the bread from the oven and not a wooden one?
See subject line. Bread and pizza slide off polished metal easier than off of wood. For pros it probably doesn't matter but for once-a-week home bread/pizza makers, its easier to master than the artful flick of a wooden peel to release and settle dough. Wood and alum work equally well for retrieving baked product from the oven though of course it's easier to slide a thin sheet of stiff metal than a slab of wood under loaves or pizze to remove them from the oven.
Tom
I like this one, good for bread and pizza. One piece no moving parts. Comes in a variety of sizes but I like the 16" wide as it is the size of my baking steel and pizzas. for bread I use a parchment paper on the peel, placing bread on top.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Star-Foodservice-50196-Aluminum/dp/B009LPDPNE/ref=sr_1_6?crid=ELYFXKAR57M6&keywords=pizza+peel+16+inch&qid=1576196797&sprefix=pizza+peel%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-6
good luck!!
FWIW, I've had an American Metalcraft peel for decades -- a 14"x16" aluminum sheet with a 12" wooden handle that costs about $10. They have different sizes and handle lengths. It has never hurt my baking stones or anything else for that matter - Al is a pretty soft metal!
I’d only go back to a traditional peel if baking in a deep WFO with a small door. The Superpeel is a brilliant design for home oven baking of bread and pizza. And it’s very well made. Gently settles your dough in the oven. ??
Tom
+2 with greyoldchief and ourcrumb. You can't do any better than superpeel, a great peer for bread, and even better for loading a pizza. With a wooden peel, if you take too long to load the cheese and sauce and any topping, the pie can stick to the peel. You can let a pie sit on the super peel for quite some time and I have never had one stick. I use a regular metal or wooden peel to retrieve bread and pizza, retrieving is very easy compared to loading.
Do you ever use the superpeel without the cloth just as a regular wooden peel? All these positive reviews for it are making me more interested... I thought it might just be a bit of a gimmick and bumped up by fake reviews on Amazon, but maybe not!
Without the cloth, the Super Peel is just a peel more or less like any wooden peel. It's the clever cloth movement "gimmick" that makes it indispensable. In this case, most or all of the positive reviews are likely to be real and not fake. It is a genuinely valuable, cleverly designed and sturdily constructed tool. Put it on your Christmas list before it's too late.
Tom
(only connection to the Super Peel company is that I bought their product)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ZZWZRG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Have had it in regular usage for close to 10 years. No damage to the stone or the peel.
I do really like the cost-effectiveness of these aluminum peels, but some people seem super high on the superpeel kick! I have some considering to do...
Cat, i have several wooden peels ( all DIY ), an aluminum peel, and a few super peels - it is not exactly an addiction, but I have owned a number of different pizza ovens in the past, and you can end up needing different sized peels. For bread, wood or aluminum will work fine, so long as the peel is correctly floured. If you have a wet spot on the dough, it will stick to an aluminum or wooden peel, and that can give you a bad launch , especially for a batard. Pizza can be more demanding, since you often stretch the dough, then put it on the peel, then add the sauce the cheese and then the toppings, and the longer it sits on a peel, the better the chance it will stick. While you can minimize that by heavily dusting the dough with flour, that can leave a bitter taste on the pizza. While the Superpeel is pricey, it is well worth it, IMO, if you are considering it to launch pizza.
Thank you, Barry! Your response is super helpful. I think I'm just going to pony up and buy the superpeel :)
hope you like it, if you don't post back and let others know. Of course , if you do, post as well. For pizza, it is the bomb. BTW, if you use a gas fired pizza oven or wood fired oven, you have to take some steps to prevent the cover from charring, or stretch and dress the pie on the super peel, and transfer to a wooden peel a few seconds before launching. On regular pizza ovens, or home ovens, using the super peel for the whole process is fine.