Pizza stone and peel?
 

Hello,

I have the honor of officiating a wedding of a family friend this Summer. My wife and I received a pizza stone and peel as a gift ten million years ago when we were married. We have chased pizza perfection ever since. And, I think we now make a darn solid pie.

I was going to write up WHY the pizza stone and peel and include my recipe that has taken over 30 years to master.

I think this would be a gift that is far more memorable than $$$ or a toaster.


But the question. Is a pizza stone the preferred cooking method if you only have an oven?

TIA.

I think it's a clever gift idea because of the message. I think you should go with it regardless of what's the latest pizza making trend.

^^^Hmmm. The wisdom of Dixie is strong...I mostly agree.

Thanks, we'll just gloss over all the ways marriage is not like a pizza. Like I said, it's a cute message with a tie-in to a gift.

... It's way better than a $500 off coupon to a divorce attorney.

Excellent idea

You should tell that story at the wedding…

Reminds me of this:

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I think that's a great gift! It's personal, thoughtful, and provides useful wisdom to the couple to explore.

That said - I've broken several pizza stones. Add some directions about how to not break the pizza stone. (And I've personally given up on pizza stones - I now have a thick cast-iron pizza pan and pre-heat it before throwing a pie on it. I do think the stone is better, but I haven't broken this thing yet.)

(In guilty tone of voice) I have bought a few frozen supermarket pizzas. And what I've found is if I put them frozen onto the VERY hot pizza stone it cracks them. However, if I bring the previously frozen pizza up to room temperature the stone is fine.

LWJ, if you'd like to put your secret pizza recipe up here on this thread I can, umm, err, check it for grammar etc LOL

^^^I can do this. Need to write it up first. The great news, 30+ years of occasionally awful R&D is behind it.

Thanks for the thoughts y'all. I'm doing this.

Perfect! I look forward to enjoying your old family recipe....

Much appreciated. I need all the help I can get.

So very thoughtful!

Agree with Dixie. The imparting of valued and hard earned knowledge along with the tools to put it to use are a very special gift indeed!

Its a great idea.

Personally, I prefer a pizza steel to a stone. On a rack about 6 in under the broiler, heat for 45 min or so, steel gets to 700 plus easily. Great for a Neapolitan style pie.

^^^wait! Tell me more? You broil the steel? Do you use the lower oven heat at all? This sounds like a big step forward. High heat is super important but my oven barely goes over 500. I was looking at steels and think they have an advantage over stones. This is exciting. More please.

So probably more than you want to know, but this is the best home pizza stuff I've read: https://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

I don't "hack" my oven like he does to get 900+ temps, nor do I cover my glass. I do use my oven set to broil. I don't use the lower oven heat at all. I have a highish end oven (Dacor) where the broil temp is in theory 555, but I routinely see 740ish at the steel (using an infrared gun thermometer) after 45 min to an hour. I did hack a prior oven with a thermostat cuttout switch to the broiler circuit, wasn't worth the trouble, and I did crack the inner glass with a drip.

Look around for a steel-there are folks on amazon and ebay that'll just sell an appropriately cut piece of 1/4 steel (or so) without the premium of a branded "pizza steel". They all need to be seasoned somewhat.

The only thing to figure out is the height of the rack-too high and you risk doing weird things to the cheese if the broiler cycles on, too low and you get out of the heat trapped in the top of the oven which is necessary to keep up with the steel. And either way I wait 5 min or so to allow the steel to come back to temp between pies.

Another tip I've found indispensible-on the wooden peel, semolina flour works 10x better at allowing the pie to move off the peel than white flour, particularly if you use higher hydration dough. Some folks use cornmeal, which works well but you can taste it and feel the texture, not so with semolina. Caputo sells semolina in small bags.

And of course, cold ferment the dough for no less than 2 and up to 7 days...

Greg have you been to Mellow Mushroom in Blacksburg? It's a chain with other locations but i've only been to that spot. Fantastic pizza with a very unique dough.

The only real Q is: how do you get the damn pizza to come off the "peel" nicely without turning into a calzone... I can have a bag of flour under it, it's still iffy.. I see gadgets where you can rotate a conveyor belt ;-)


PS: if you wanna try south of france-taste pizza, which eluded me for a bit, different flavor, mix the mozza with Emmental/Gruyere (swiss cheese basically) or even go 100% swiss - you may be surprised, tastes friggin' delicious, the cheese crust is much nicer, and a lot less bland !

Another recent discovery for me: Burrata melting on top of your existing hot pizza (over the mozza), OMG....

See above- semolina flour. Move quickly, no more than a minute on the peel. Front edge of peel to back edge of steel/stone, tilt handle up, when front of pie hits the hot surface pull out keeping the up tilt.

I had trouble until I went to semolina.

Not the Blacksburg location, but there's one here in Charlottesville. Its on the "UVA corner" - a block of bars and food joints across from the school, so altho the pies are good we tend to avoid it for 9 months out of the year.