Home pizza sheeters?

[Tab]

Any recommendations for an affordable home pizza sheeter? Affordable being, say, under $200? I don't want some huge commercial rig.

I don't need it to do a lot of volume, but just work well, and preferably not take up the whole kitchen. There might be hand-cranked ones for $30 for all I know, but I'd be willing to dump up to $200 for a quality sheeter. Anything over that, I'd have some 'splaining to do.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Seems others have already tread on this path .......

I found this ...... maybe you've seen it. It came up when I googled 'home pizza sheeter' ......

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,19.0.html

[eleny]

2. Just 2 ¢

Here's a fun pizza blog. Maybe he's got some tips. http://www.pizzamaniac.com/index.php/archives/2004/05/18/my-pizza-background/

I wonder if it wouldn't be fun to learn to hand toss? Start small and work up. I bet you could get really good at it and it would be free.

Edit: Here's a site that has online classes for making hand tossed pizza. Not free, but not 200 bucks .... http://www.homespunpizza.com/html/why_join.html

[Wordie]

3. Is a pizza sheeter kind of the equivalent of a pasta machine,

but for pizza dough? I'm just sort of reading between the lines here, cause I'd never heard of one before. I'm curious. What would be the advantage of using one?

You must really like pizza!

[Stinky The Clown]

4. You're exactly right ...... a biiiiiig pasta roller

It is used to flatten out dough for pizza. In fact, a sheeter is used for pizza, danish pastry, croissants, pie shells, etc, etc, etc.

Some people (in that link I posted, above) talked about using an old wringer washing machine's rollers as a sheeter. In fact, that would probably work, except it isn't adjustable. You need a sheeter to have adjustment so you can get the dough to a precise and repeatable thickness.

Commercial sheeters are pretty expensive.

[Warpy]

5. My mother had a wringer washer with adjustable rollers

You adjusted them down with each successive wring to get the most water you could out of the clothing.

I think I was six when she got rid of that sucker.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. As I recall, all of them had some adjustment .....

but not enough to work well as a sheeter.

But I might be wrong. I last saw one in operation in the late 1950s.

[anitar1]

8. My eyes lit up when you mentioned Danish Pastry.

It is so much work, but I love it. Can't find real Danish here.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. Did you ever find one? n/t

[Tab]

9. No, but as a consolation prize...

I'm taking a class in pizza making (my pizzas are already yum, but the dough/crust is what I need work on).

I live about 45 minutes from the King Arthur Flour Company, and they host baking classes on various topics for a few hours on various dates, and a class on pizza crust is coming up in about 2 weeks. If I get to make it (no scheduling problems) then I'll post what I learn.

Also, for fun, I ordered some "throw dough" (http://www.throwdough.com). Harder than I had hoped!