Do you need the OONI Turning Peel?

Are Ooni pizza peels worth it?

Is the Ooni pizza peel worth it?

One of the more common questions I get about my pizza recipes is about peeling the pizza on the stone. A few years ago I created a web page called My Pizza. On that page I explained how to make a good pizza and how I peel the pizza with an Ooni Pizza Peel. I also included a video where I explain it in much more detail. Recently, I have come across some posts in which people ask me why I use the Ooni Pizza Peel. I decided to do an experiment on some pizzas. I made three pizzas, one with the peel, one with the pizza paddle, and one with no peel or paddle at all.

Here are the results: First, here are the ingredients I used in each pizza: 1 teaspoon of olive oil. 3/4 of a medium sized red onion (cut into slices). 1/2 of a green pepper (cut into slices). 2 small cloves of garlic (cut into slices). 8 ounces of mushrooms (sliced). 2 handfuls of red onions. 1 red pepper. 2 cups of mixed lettuce. 1/4 cup of cherry tomatoes. 2 cups of diced mozzarella. And finally two cups of Italian cheese blend. Here are the three pizzas I made. The left picture is the pizza I made with the Ooni Pizza Peel. I used a wooden pizza paddle to flatten the pizza. The pizza was baked on a pizza stone.

The middle picture is the pizza I made with a wooden pizza paddle. The right picture is the pizza I made without any help. Here are my observations: The pizza I made with the peel was baked at higher heat than the other two pizzas. As a result it had better coloration.

The pizza I made without a peel looked more like a flatbread than a pizza. The pizza I made with the paddle looked much flatter than the one with the peel. The one with no help had the thickest crust. This is my conclusion: There are many people out there who believe that a peel makes the pizza look better. As far as coloration, I agree that a peel can give you better coloration.

Is a perforated pizza peel better than a solid one?

In an experiment involving 12 pairs of pizza operators, only one pair could keep their peels clean after six months, and even those that washed their peels with antibacterial soap and water couldn't prevent the peel from becoming perforated.

While that doesn't necessarily mean you should toss your peel away and purchase a new one right now, the data doesn't support a solid peel lasting forever.

The researchers looked at the amount of cleaning solution that dripped off the peels to track how much liquid they were able to remove after washing. Washing with lye soap removed more solution than with antibacterial soap or water alone, but the amount didn't reach the level needed to make a difference.

Cleaning up the grime requires multiple washes, not just one. After six months, only 50 percent of the peels retained even a single drop of cleaning solution, but they were twice as likely to be cleaned than those that couldn't manage it.

To get your peel clean, you have to make sure it has some contact with the cleaning solution, and that's when a perforated peel comes in handy. The researchers found that peels with perforations had cleaner faces after six months of use, but it came at the cost of losing about 2.8 ounces of solution during use compared to only 0.6 ounces for the solid peels. (The amount depends on how big the perforations are and the volume of the cleaning solution used.) The amount of the solution lost is roughly equivalent to the weight of a slice of pizza, so that's a big loss.

In the end, the researchers found that after six months, the two types of peels were equally likely to be clean. They used the same cleaning solution, with only the type of peel changed, and that made no difference in the peels' cleanliness. The cleaning solution did the job, it just wasn't always successful.

But if you're into washing your peels every time you use them, don't worry too much. They weren't broken after six months just dirty.

Why won't my Ooni pizza come off the peel?

When my Ooni pizza came out of the oven, the bottom of the pizza was a little loose and it was hard to get the pizza out of the peel.

It took me a little while to figure it out. I put the peel in the oven with the pizza and had the oven on for a while before I put the pizza out. It's a good thing I did because I tried to pull it out and it broke. I'll try to remember next time.

My theory is that the bottom of the pizza sticks to the oven floor. You can lift it up and move it a bit, then ease it back down. Repeat. Once you get the bottom up, the top should come out, and the middle should stay put.