Barbara E. Schmitt had commented about using parchment for getting pizza
off the peel into the oven, concerning Judy Mayberry's question about this.
If your peel has been properly, that is, sufficiently floured, the pizza
will slide right off it into the oven, if you do one trick first. What you
should do first however, before putting the peel even near the oven, is to
lift the peel and jerk it smartly forward or backward until you can
determine that the pizza will slide freely. The dough may have stuck in
places. The jerking will help free it. If it's really really stuck you
can attend to it (by lifting the spots and adding a bit more flour) before
you and it are in the hot oven. You can use cornmeal or semolina instead
of flour on the peel if you want.
Although having it on parchment certainly works, and is a good idea, I
haven't found it necessary. Furthermore, baking stones reportedly help the
crisping process by absorbing moisture from the dough. Having a parchment
or worse yet a Silpat barrier would prevent that. Silpat may also be thick
enough to provide thermal insulation, which is the opposite of what we want
when putting pizza onto a nice hot stone.
Mark Judman <Mark_Judman@colpal.com>