Forgot to make dough for pizza night so resorted to TJ’s premade dough. Ended up sticking to my peel way more than I thought but tried to launch anyways and proceeded to send mozzarella and sauce into my oven…
Pizza still tasted pretty good though!
Any tips for getting dough to unstick to a wooden peel? Felt pretty loose but started to stick once I had it topped.. I tried to whip some semolina under sticky parts of the dough but maybe didn’t use enough? Any feedback appreciated.
by Bum_Civilian
8 Comments
I never prep on the peel anymore. Otherwise, lift and blow some air under and maybe toss some semolina while doing it
Either more flour and make sure it moves freely on the peel with a little shake, or you can start it on parchment paper and pull that after 2 or 3 minutes. Some people bake it on a pizza screen, I’m not sure if they are leaving it on that the whole bake or removing partway.
Hard to get it unstuck from the peel once you’ve crossed that threshold but you did the right thing, just probably needed a bit more flour and the shake test to make sure it’s unstuck.
more flour/semolina
be mindful of ambient temp; if it’s warm I find that sticking is faster/worse so I need to operate more quickly and jiggle more often. i also keep the pizza away from the warmth of the oven until launching. i lingered with a peel in front of the oven once and the warmth made the pizza stick.
frequent jiggles while building on peel
(if that’s your process; it’s what i do) to keep things loose
wipe peel clean of any moisture in between pizzas
i also stretch a bit prematurely before topping which gives the dough a chance to air dry a bit. i live in a very dry climate.
It’s a pizza making rite of passage!
Just be liberal with the semolina before placing stretched dough on the peel. Give it a shimmy every so often while topping to make sure it’s still loose. I find that a well rested dough will have less tendency to stick as well.
https://preview.redd.it/a6rc6yqnvtdh1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed0c16c6786ca760851b3a46cd8102e87b5afa7d
Only feedback from me is I’d eat the hell outta that.
Prep pizza on parchment paper, use peel to pick up parchment paper, launch parchment paper with pizza on top onto steel.
This has happened to be, worst time was 70% of toppings hit the oven and the pizza base folded in half on itself.
Now I just double check the base is sliding on the semolina and I try to top quickly especially if the kitchen is warm.
If you’re using a wooden peel, I recommend a small amount of regular AP flour on it first spread around by hand to get into the nooks and crannies, then a liberal amount of semolina, then dough on and build.
Give it a shake every minute while building so it can’t settle, and one last good shake before launching to make sure you’re not stuck from sauce bleed