This size is just right, sturdy enough to give confidence

A pizza peel is a must if you make a lot of pizza, even the frozen kind. It allows you to get the pizza into and out of the oven quickly without letting out all the heat or burning yourself. Aluminum ones are thinner than the wood variety and so are easier to slip under the pizza. The handle on this model is long enough to reach into standard ovens, but short enough to navigate a small kitchen. As other reviews noted, a pizza peel does take some practice and adaptation to work best though. My first pizza with it crumpled when I tried to slide the peel under it, but I switched to cornmeal under the pizza as I made it instead of flour and that worked much better. This peel also works well for baking so called 'artisan' breads, such baguettes on a baking stone without a pan. If you do make baguettes or Italian white bread you can't beat the crust from baking it like that. The one large negative and one-star loss is storage options. It is pretty big so it won't fit in most drawers, would take up a ton of shelf space, and wouldn't really fit in a vertical shelf for baking sheets since the handle is angled. The ideal solution is to hang it on the side of a cabinet, but to do that I had to drill a hole in the handle for a small strap.

I had been meaning to purchase a pizza peel for quite some time. Since most pizzas sold in supermarkets these days are made to be cooked on the oven rack and not on a cookie sheet or pizza stone, it get's quite problematic trying to get the pizza out by taking out the entire rack. This pizza peel solves that problem easily. It's well-made, sturdy and easy to clean. I chose the short handle version (12-inch handle with 8-inches of the wooden handle exposed) since we live in an apartment for now, but if you have a pizza oven outdoors, you may want to consider getting one with a longer handle. This one works great for my pizza cooking needs. I only wish it had come with a hole pre-drilled in the handle for a leather strap for hanging the peel on the wall or in the pantry (something I took care of soon after it arrived). Nevertheless, it does exactly what it's designed to do - easily remove pizzas from hot ovens.

Previously, I had been using the thicker wooden peels, but getting the pizza in or out of the oven was tricky and often damaged the pizza. I bought this aluminum peel because it is larger and thinner than a normal wooden peel.

I love this pizza peel! It works so well with moving the pizza in or out of the oven. It slides right under the pizza with minor effort, and slides right off when needed. I am very happy with this purchase. I have used this peel at least 10 times since I bought it, and I have not been disappointed with its performance thus far. The edges seem slightly rough, and probably could use a grinding/smoothing, but it is not really a problem. The only minor downside is that the peel does not have a way to hang it up....I ended up drilling a small hole in the wooden handle and threading a string to allow me to hang the peel on wall.

Overall, if you are looking for a quality pizza peel, this is the one to buy!

Being my first pizza peel I wasn't sure what to expect. The internet is right. The metal peels are easy to remove pizza from a stone. But, you gotta be careful about the wet dough sticking when putting the pizza on the stone. I went way to slow and didn't keep shaking the peel while building the pizza. The pizza got stuck many times.

The peel itself does not fold down to a smaller size. I have the storage space in my kitchen for it. However, I can imagine some kitchens having trouble storing this peel. The materials feel strong and not cheap. I was impressed at the overall quality versus the cost.

I recommend this peel overall. However, if your a first timer, like I was, maybe start with a wood peel?