Semolina vs Flour for Dusting
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The thin layer of powder between your pizza and the peel is easy to ignore and quietly decisive. It has one primary job, keeping wet dough from bonding to the surface long enough for you to launch, and two secondary effects, changing the texture of the finished base and either surviving or burning in the oven. The main candidates are the flour you already use, semolina, cornmeal, and rice flour, and they behave differently enough that it is worth choosing on purpose rather than grabbing whatever is open.
Plain wheat flour is the default and works acceptably: it is free, already on your bench, and adds no new flavor. Its weaknesses show under pressure. Fine flour absorbs moisture from the dough within a couple of minutes, gradually turning from ball bearings into paste, which is why a slowly-built pizza sticks even on a floured peel. It also burns fast; loose flour on a 400 degree stone carbonizes in seconds, and repeated bakes without brushing the stone build up an acrid black dust that bitters every subsequent base. If you dust with flour, use little, build fast, and sweep the stone between pies.
Semolina, the coarse golden milling of durum wheat, is the traditional pizzeria answer and the best all-around choice. Its granular particles genuinely roll under the dough, giving the classic ball-bearing release, and they absorb moisture far more slowly than fine flour, extending your safe build window. Semolina tolerates heat better before burning, adds a faint sweetness and a pleasant, subtle crunch to the base, and gives the underside an attractive golden speckle. Many bakers use a 50/50 blend of semolina and flour, capturing the release of the coarse grain with the softer surface of the fine, and that blend is a sensible house standard.
Cornmeal is the polarizing one. It releases well, its particles are coarse like semolina, but it burns at a lower temperature than durum wheat and its flavor is assertive; a cornmeal-dusted base tastes distinctly of corn, which some people associate fondly with American pizzeria slices and others find intrusive and gritty. In a high-heat outdoor oven, cornmeal scorches quickly and can leave bitter, blackened grit on the stone. It is a legitimate stylistic choice for lower-temperature home baking and a poor one above 350 degrees Celsius.
Rice flour is the specialist. It is the standard dusting for high-hydration bread doughs because it absorbs water remarkably slowly, and for very wet pizza doughs, 70 percent hydration and beyond, it outperforms everything else at preventing sticking. It is flavor-neutral and burns less readily than wheat flour. The downsides are texture and cost: it lacks semolina's pleasant crunch, contributes nothing to appearance, and is the most expensive option per launch. Keep a small jar for your wettest experiments and for patching a peel mid-session when a sticky pie needs emergency help.
Whatever you choose, quantity discipline beats material choice. The correct amount is a light, even film, applied and then tapped or shaken off, not a snowdrift; excess dusting of any kind ends up on your stone, in your oven's smoke, and on the bitter underside of your crust. Combine a modest semolina blend with a fast build and the shake test before launching, and the powder under your pizza will do its job invisibly, which is exactly what it is supposed to do.