On my way to Vancouver last week for the Wavefront Wireless Conference I was driving by myself and getting close to Bellingham. Bellingham is where Woodstone Oven’s are made that are the same ovens you see in Whole Food, California Pizza Kitchen, many corporate cafeterias, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurants, and my kitchen. I go to Serious Pie at least twice a month given a construction project I am working on is right next to it, and was able to have bfast with one of my Apple friends who was in town for vacation.

Below is one of two ovens at Serious Pie. I usually try to talk to the cook’s to get a few tips on how they use their oven. I am trying to bump the temperature of my over from 550 to 600 to get a better crust on the pizza.

Woodstone Oven has a training room right next to lobby. And, I went in to check out the latest gear. My oven is the same as the one on the left which is a 4’ chuckanut model.

One of the changes Woodstone made is to replace the stainless steel pizza peel (left) with an aluminum one (right).

What’s wrong with the stainless steel one? Even when you put corn meal or semolina flour down, the pizza tends to stick too much. And I would swap to a wood peel to make the pizza. The aluminum one is a rough brushed finish that makes it much easier to slide the pizza.

I’ve only made one pizza with the new peel, and it is so much better than the stainless steel one. Problem is aluminum will dent and bend much easier than the stainless steel.