Equipment – How to Protect and Maintain a Pizza Peel

Perfect. Sounds like your pizza stone is nicely seasoned. Scrub it with your stiffest brush, rinse with water, no soap, done. If you're paranoid about germs, cook it before cooking on it. Throw it in the oven at a few hundred degrees, for 15 minutes or so.

Ideally, you're supposed to heat the stone (thus sterilizing it) before slapping the pizza upon it anyway (although that requires a pizza peel).

Since my pizza dough recipe makes three 12" pies and I usually make two at a time, I regularly freeze extras just as you did.

To thaw, I have used both the countertop and refrigerator method. Thawing on the countertop produced the best results. The dough rolled as usual and the crust (a thin one) was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside after baking.