EXO "BIG 16" - 16" Super Peel Non-Stick Pizza Peel

I prefer to make relatively thin crust pizza with crumbled toppings that can roll off when trying to "slide" the pizza onto a pizza steel. Since I'm usually cooking for the whole family, I can't just cook 8" or 10" pizzas (that tend to be easier to slide off a traditional peel) as it takes too long to get all the food cooked. I used to use cornmeal and semolina flour, making sure to keep my dough as dry as possible, assemble the pizza as quickly as possible, etc. It was usually a mess, and always a hassle. Now I can assemble the pizza on the countertop, without a hurry. When I am ready to put the pizza in the oven I just "conveyor belt" it onto this peel, then reverse the motion to set it down on the cooking steel in the oven. No mess, no hassle. It's great. Large diameter, thin crust pizzas put into the oven with ease. It's expensive, but if you make pizza fairly frequently, and you dislike having toppings and cheese dropping to the bottom of your oven, this is a great option. To anyone struggling with how to use the peel, practice picking up a plate, or something similarly shaped, and putting it down in the same place. The motion isn't hard, but it just takes a little practice.

I make pretty good homemade pizzas, but have never been able to move them intact from the counter to the baking steel in the oven. This peel solves that problem. The size is just right to move a 15" round pizza - the largest size that will fit on my baking steel. The handle is properly shaped for a comfortable grip. The canvas cover takes a bit of finessing to fit tightly without binding up, and the plastic clip can come off inadvertently. However, once you have the correct cover tension, you can slide the peel under the uncooked pizza with ease, and just as easily move the pizza off the peel onto the steel. I'm not particularly coordinated, but I mastered those skills with my first pizza. The canvas cover tends to get soiled with dough, flour, topping stains, and char from the baking steel. After a few uses, it looks a bit unsightly, but that doesn't affect the functionality or impart taste to the pizzas. I don't use this peel for getting the finished pizza out of the oven; the conveyor action of the EXO Super Peel is unnecessary and moving the canvas cover on the baking steel is likely to scorch the fabric. Rather I use an aluminum peel to transfer the pizza to the counter.

I purchased this for my father as a Christmas gift as homemade pizza is one of his favorite things to make. He used it to make pizza for the family while we were all in town and it seemed to work great. He was able to make the pizza right on the countertop with just a little bit of flour underneath and actually pick the pizza up off the counter using the "conveyor belt" system. Then he could reverse the process to put the pizza right on the hot pizza steel that I bought him to go with it that was sitting right on the oven rack. He made a few pizzas and as he got used to how it worked, he liked it better and better. I haven't checked in to see if he's used it since so I don't know how it's holding up, etc., but it worked great. Also, although "experts" typically recommend a solid wood peel, I think that because of the conveyor system, the surface doesn't matter as much and since the metal is probably lighter than the solid wood would be, I went with that. Just my two cents!

The perfect size for my 16" pizza stone. I read other reviews about the cloth shrinking. I washed on cold and line dried - no shrinkage, no wrinkling. The included pamphlet says shrinkage up to 1.25" is normal. They recommend cold to lukewarm water and line drying; if choosing to tumble dry, use low and remove while still damp to finish drying as over-drying will cause wrinkling and additional shrinking which might require ironing (possibly the worst chore ever, in my book). Even if it shrunk a full inch or so, it wouldn't impact usage in my kitchen since I make appx. 14" pizzas. I was able to make the pizzas on the counter and load them onto the "belt" without any problem. I use my old wood peel for removal so I can cut directly on the peel and slide on a plate. If you have a large enough cutting board, you could use this peel to remove the finished pizza to the board and load up a "raw" pizza very quickly. With my old system I was having to remove the first pizza from the oven and then start creating the second one directly on the wooden peel. This peel really saves me a bunch of time since I can put down crust on the counter for my kids or guests, allow them to create their own pizzas, and then pick up their creations from the counter and load into the oven as soon as I remove the previous pizza. There were some tips in the instruction pamphlet that helped me to understand the peel better, even though I had watched several videos prior to purchase. 1. When you wrap the canvas around, there should be about 1" of slack/drop when you look at the underside of the peel. I suspect people who have had trouble getting the belt to slide easily have had it wrapped too tightly. 2. I thought you were supposed to push/pull the clamp up and down to operate the belt, but it is really your hand holding the peel handle that moves back and forth. As a righty, my right elbow is what moves forward and back; my left hand/ stays in one place just holding onto the clamp. If you try to move the clamp instead, it doesn't slide as smoothly. I will need to get used to not using so much flour/cornmeal on the counter around the crust. The cloth picks up the excess flour on the open space around the pizza which caused a dusting inside the oven making for a smoky flour cloud as I slid it in the oven. I'm used to needing the crust to move around freely on the wooden peel in order to slide it off. That isn't necessary with this system, so that will just take a bit of personal experience to get that right. I'm a big baker and have never perfected picking up pie crusts around a rolling pin, so I'm looking forward to giving that a go with this peel. I also like the idea of using waxed paper in lieu of the canvas to pick up gooey items like cake layers. I think this will be a pretty versatile tool that will get a good amount of use in my kitchen beyond our weekly pizza night.

Brilliant! Once you get the hang of using this, it makes getting pizzas onto a pizza stone as simple as can be! Yes, you can use it to get the finished pizzas off as well but we simply use an oversized metal peel for that. We had been struggling with getting an uncooked pizza onto the stone. Not enough cornmeal or too big a pizza or whatever but we just could not get the hang of it until this fantastic peel came along. We have shown it to family and friends and all love it. I think we have probably sold several more for this company. It is also fun to use and impresses the heck out of folks when they watch us slide a full sized 16” pizza onto the hot stone just like pros.

I am having an EXTREMELY difficult time with the dough sticking to the cloth. I have put lots of flour on the cloth, but all I get is the flour going all over the inside of my oven & the dough (bread & pizza) still sticking to the cloth. Sure would like to know WHAT I am doing so very wrong. I am conscious to NOT push the bottom & to use the conveyor. Owner is great...I just wonder if I bought the wrong one & should have gotten the wood one with the slit?

Product is awesome. A little difficult to clean.

Just what I'd been hoping for, longing for, lusting for. This took my pizza making to the next level. I'm always reading blogs and recipes to boost my pizza, but this peel made it look -- and taste -- better than any ingredient or technique I tried to date. Don't think about making this purchase. If you don't have one and you make pizza on a regular basis, you NEED it, and you need it right now ! You can use your old peel to move the pizza around in the oven, you won't want to dirty the linen cover for that purpose, although it washes easily and goes back on like a dream.