Launching – get the pizza off the peel every time
Your pizza sticks because you are too slow, not because the peel is wrong. On semola versus flour, peel angle and a rhythm that works even for beginners.
Quick answer: A pizza usually sticks because you are too slow with the peel, not because the peel is wrong. Dust with semola or rice flour (which absorb less water than ordinary flour) and move quickly and decisively, and the risk drops considerably.
Semola instead of flour
Ordinary wheat flour quickly soaks up moisture from the dough and turns sticky itself after a minute or so on the peel. Coarse semola (durum wheat semolina) or rice flour absorbs less moisture and works more like ball bearings between dough and peel for longer.
The time factor
The longer the topped pizza sits on the peel before it goes in, the more moisture migrates down towards the peel and makes the dough sticky. So top the pizza as close to launching as possible, and make the movement itself a quick, decisive jerk forward rather than a slow pull.
If it still sticks, see concrete fixes in pizza sticks to the peel. The next step in the oven is turning. Practise the whole process with your first pizza.
