Pizza Peal

Here is one I remembered seeing

My wife had one that came with her pizza stone also. It lasted for about a year. I think it was just cheap pine. Once it split in two, I was going to try and glue it back together, but once I looked at it, I told myself, self, you need to make a new one. So I gathered up some oak scraps and built a bigger, heavier one that works great. The wood was stained from air drying for two years out behind the shed, but I think it adds a lot of character to the wood.

Mind you, it isn’t anything fancy, more of a proof of concept really. But my wife won’t part with it now. I have a bunch of maple I am going to make another one out of, should look a lot better.

-- Accept Nothing, Challenge Everything

Before you go too far Danny, take an out of the box approach to looking at the problem. Try sprinkling some corn meal on the peal before you lay the dough on it, the corn meal works like ball bearings and allows the dough to roll off the peal and onto the stone. Bread makers have used this trick for years, and it causes no lasting taste or problems. Remember, just a light dusting works.

Good Luck.

-- -JimmyC...Clayton,NC- "Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave"

I’ve used the cornmeal (I even worked for a pizza place that used it) and I really don’t like it. For my money, a slick topped peel is better because it doesn’t need anything. Plus, cornmeal can be a mess in your stove. I haven’t done this yet (lazy) but I’m still planning to. I’ll report my results when I do. Eventually, I may just make one to replace this one since it isn’t the best quality to begin with.

~DB

-- He said wood...http://hickbyassociation.blogspot.com/

I’ve used rice flower instead of corn meal with good results.

-- Don, Pittsburgh

We use parchment paper, it protects your pizza stone as well as your peel. It makes it really easy to get the pizza back on the peel also.

-- Accept Nothing, Challenge Everything

I made a pizza peel for my girlfriend, and she cranks out restaurant-quality pizzas every Sunday night. It’s 3/4” red oak I had laying around, and I’ve used it as a template for others. I need to mineral oil it again, because I didn’t follow the once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year regimen. She uses cornmeal, and we make sure the kitchen is well-ventilated, but it’s never ruined a dinner party (the smoke alarm is very festive). It helps a lot if you clean up last week’s cornmeal. We tried parchment paper, but you have to be very careful when you get around 450F. She had a fire, and I reminded her of a Ray Bradbury book she was supposed to read in school. BTW, FYI, and all that, we use unglazed red 6×6 tiles to create a pizza stone matrix in our oven. They are considerably less expensive than a “real” pizza stone, and accomplish the same thing. We leave ours in all the time to stabilize the oven temp. I made the bevel on one side by passing it over the jointer in an arc at a shallow angle, keeping the pivot point (handle) perpendicular to the blade. The tricky part was holding the spring-loaded blade guard back while doing it.

-- You can't control the wind, but you can trim your sails

I made one for our house out of western red cedar. Its nice and light weight. I made it with a detached handle that if ever I need to replace the flat I can keep the handle. The handle has a ball and claw carved into it. Well sorta, still new at the carving thing. I will often mix my corn meal with flour so as not to be too mealy.

-- wooley

most a PEAL ing

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop Southern Oregon