Pizza Gear Upgrade: Heavy-Duty Pan Gripper

For the last ten or so years, I've been relying on your typical pan gripper when it comes to trying to extract my pizzas out of their pans.  It looks like this one.  But, at some point, I was turned on to the one you see above:  a heavy-duty version.  And it ended up on my Christmas list to Natalie.  It is $5.75 and can be bought from Northern Pizza Equipment.  Nat's brother was looking for ideas for Christmas gifts this year and she sent him along the link and he ended up gifting it to me.  Because of the move, it ended up in a box with some other pizza gear - awaiting the day when it can be used to help with my pizza making.

A few weekends back, this thing made it's debut.  And I don't know how I lived without it.  It is super strong and has a very wide lip on the mouth of the gripper that allows me to - with one hand - grab a cutter pan from Lloyd Pans directly out of the oven and put it on the stovetop.  No more need for even an oven mitt - which is pretty awesome.  From there, I 'unseal' the pie from the edges of the cutter pans and then using this thing kind of hoist the pie in the air and try to slide a spatula underneath the skin to extract the pie for cutting.

This is a big upgrade for me and goes along with the dimpled serving pans and risers that Nat gave me back last summer.  As for pizza gear, these will go into permanent rotation.