[HN Gopher] Baker's Math (2009)
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Baker's Math (2009)
Author : cwmartin
Score : 174 points
Date : 2022-10-02 13:59 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thefreshloaf.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thefreshloaf.com)
| karesztrk wrote:
| Fyi https://breadtoolkit.netlify.app/calculator
| andreasscherman wrote:
| Slightly related and maybe useful to someone: I built a
| "declarative" (sourdough) calculator which simplifies these
| calculations, or at least reverses the question so you just fill
| in what properties of the loaf you want. Link:
| https://breadfriend.com.
| dxdm wrote:
| In the first sentence on the start page, there's an unnecessary
| apostrophe in the word "recipes". It's a plural form, not a
| possessive. Not everyone will agree or care, but this kind of
| thing can have an unfortunate effect when people come to the
| page for the first time and form an opinion about it.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I'm surprised how something so basic as learning that baking
| recipes are ratios of _mass_ makes me feel more comfortable and
| inclined to try baking than anything ever has before. It's such a
| simple concept, and much more approachable to me than I'd
| expected before I clicked the link.
| chrisbuc wrote:
| I've always thought of baking as a science and cooking as an
| art (although both are on a spectrum from art to science).
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| That's basically how I thought of it too, but now I think I
| can kind of _understand_ the science.
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| Same. I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of the math
| and the usefulness of it.
| lupire wrote:
| More "baker's units" than "baker's math". It's regular math.
| informal007 wrote:
| sircastor wrote:
| My Baking experience improved substantially for me when I moved
| to weighing my ingredients instead of measuring by volume. My
| voice assistant has also been super helpful in quick conversions
| from recipes.
| ace2358 wrote:
| I've never understood cooking by volume and will reject any
| recipe that uses it. Especially for ingredients that don't have
| a fixed density.
|
| 1 cup of flour? I can easily get double the amount in my cup
| depending on how I scoop it.
|
| 1 cup chopped mint leaves... wtf?
|
| 1 large potato... kill me! At the farmers market potato's can
| come in very different shapes and sizes.
|
| I'm confident enough of a cook to know how much mint and potato
| I want, but it's impossible for flour.
|
| My rule of thumb is if the packet describes it in grams, then
| why should the recipe use volume??
|
| Converting between volume and weight is also senseless for
| anything other than water.
| jrockway wrote:
| I guess what you can take away from volume recipes is that
| the quantities aren't that critical. Usually your recipe will
| turn out quite delicious even if you get a small "large
| potato" or an oversized "large egg".
|
| You're right though that you can definitely pack a measuring
| cup with flour and get more than you intended. Bread can be
| pretty persnickety too, which is why volume based recipes
| mention how to fill the measuring cup.
| thiagocsf wrote:
| When you're using a starter, things get more interesting because
| you need to account for the water and flour content in it.
|
| It usually doesn't complicate it too much because most starters
| are 100% hydration - ie equal mass of flour and water.
| eugenekolo wrote:
| When did bakers first start using decimal? Was it always decimal?
| I'm surprised, since most things I've seen in the "real world"
| tend to be fractional.
| NextHendrix wrote:
| Don't forget to multiply the result by 13/12
| selimthegrim wrote:
| This sounds like Shi'ite inheritance math.
| _Microft wrote:
| Is this a joke or an advice which could use some more
| explanation?
| based2 wrote:
| https://www.expressio.fr/expressions/treize-a-la-douzaine
| chrisshroba wrote:
| Bold move explaining the joke in French
| vecter wrote:
| It's a joke. A "baker's dozen" is 13, not the standard 12.
| cochne wrote:
| It's a reference to a bakers dozen - make 13 so you can taste
| one and be left with 12.
| [deleted]
| mlnhd wrote:
| A "baker's dozen" is 13. Presumably so that the baker gets
| one to himself.
| temporalparts wrote:
| This was a response to an old law where bakers were accused
| of "cheating" customers by overpricing undersized loaves or
| intentionally creating giant air pockets in their bread to
| minimize the amount of converted flour the customer would
| be getting.
|
| one such source: https://www.britannica.com/story/why-is-a-
| bakers-dozen-13
| travisjungroth wrote:
| That article doesn't have any sources and I'm hesitant to
| take it as a primary source. A blog isn't an
| encyclopedia, even with the same name.
|
| Also doesn't pass some cursory thinking. If the law is
| about loaves being too light or small, how does giving
| out an extra loaf to people who buy 12 help? Who is even
| buying 12 loaves of bread when restaurants are rare and
| refrigeration non-existent? Armies, but then they're
| buying even way more.
|
| I don't know why this _needs_ a backstory. A dozen is a
| common number for objects because it's highly composite.
| Then buy X get 1 free promotions are one of the simplest
| ways to give discounts. No one has to be the first to do
| it. It could spread and people could come up with it on
| their own.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _If the law is about loaves being too light or small,
| how does giving out an extra loaf to people who buy 12
| help?_
|
| If the baker gives you 13 and calls it 12, that makes it
| harder for a greedy baker narrative to stick. It doesn't
| have to be logical, it's about managing impressions.
|
| > _Who is even buying 12 loaves of bread when restaurants
| are rare and refrigeration non-existent?_
|
| The average family used to be the size of a small army.
| 12 loafs of bread could be eaten in 1 or 2 days if you've
| got 12 hungry kids and bread is a major component of
| their diet.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| It doesn't add up that it would just be about managing
| impressions or controlling a narrative. The fact that
| there was a law regulating the price of loaves of bread
| is well recorded. Anyone selling loaves too small but
| also selling baker's dozen would be in violation.
|
| I regret trying to say buying a dozen would be uncommon.
| It's more that even if they sell a dozen, of course
| there'd frequently be orders smaller than that.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| Bakers were under constant suspicion of cheating
| customers and the regulations. Adulterated flour was a
| big concern too, not just loafs too small or airy. To
| manage their reputations, I think bakers would rationally
| take any edge they can get.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I totally agree that bakers would give an extra loaf to
| help their reputation. I seriously doubt this was done as
| a way to stay in line with the law as the linked article
| claims.
| morelisp wrote:
| > Bakers were under constant suspicion of cheating
| customers and the regulations.
|
| I once found a book of old German jokes and basically
| every third one the joke's essence was some kind of
| slander against the town miller.
| rascul wrote:
| Maybe this
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Bread_and_Ale
| bombcar wrote:
| Loaves weren't necessarily the same size as we have now.
| And smaller pastries have always existed.
|
| I suspect part of it was make 13 so if one gets messed up
| you still have 12 - and usually you don't lose one so an
| extra is available.
|
| Kind of like how Denny's started giving you the thing
| they mixed the milkshake in along with the shake.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| It's because in older days without modern packaging you
| could expect one egg to break on the way home.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| It's called abuse of notation as it's useful in practice but not
| strictly a percentage.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_of_notation
| jacksenechal wrote:
| Doesn't it all depend on the implied subject of the percentage?
| If you're thinking in percentage of total ingredients in the
| bread, then yes maybe it's an abuse of the notation. But I
| believe the intent in this case is to express each non-flour
| ingredient as a percentage of the weight of the flour. In that
| case it's a genuine percentage relationship.
| sublinear wrote:
| It's a percentage of a base unit. i.e. the amount of flour used
| is 100% of the base unit amount.
|
| Sounds like you want the total percentage which is just as easy
| to find. Given their example, the total is 170%. The proportion
| of flour to the total is 100%/170% = ~59%.
|
| Think of it as a "separation of concerns". Using a base unit
| allows you to measure without regard for the other ingredients.
| Expressing it in percent allows you to scale a recipe without
| regard for the literal amounts. It's a good system.
|
| Ever write CSS with "rem" units? It's the same idea.
| jameshart wrote:
| What's the abuse here? This seems like 'math' to me.
| crdrost wrote:
| I don't know that I'd use the term abuse, but the basic idea
| is that there are things called odds ratios (Bayes' theorem
| looks especially convenient with them!) as distinct from
| things called probabilities... The distinction is precisely
| this one, that probabilities are implicitly normalized to
| 100% total while odds you're supposed to sum everything
| together and divide.
|
| And then the point is just that we typically condition people
| to treat percentages as probabilities rather than odds. So
| you would have said something like 50:33:1:0.3 in "odds
| speak" for flour:water:salt:yeast in the dough mixture
| discussed in OP. But bakers instead communicate ":66:2:0.6"
| with the first number always implicitly being 100 (great),
| and they then use the % symbol (slightly confusing).
|
| Because they never say "flour: 100%" an unsuspecting novice
| might think that a 60% hydration dough is ~40% flour by mass,
| mix this together to form a 150%-hydration mixture, and
| wonder why the only thing that they can make with it is some
| sort of pancakes.
| jameshart wrote:
| Probabilities? Why do you need to bring those in?
|
| Percentages are just a way of writing rational numbers.
| Bread recipes are expressed effectively as 1 part flour to
| _n_ parts of each ingredient. But since _n_ in that
| formulation is usually a value less than 1, expressing that
| number as a percentage is convenient. Percentage notation
| seems completely appropriate for this usecase.
|
| So 60% hydration means 1 part flour to 60% of 1 part water,
| i.e. to .6 parts water.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Abuse of notation is incredibly common in mathematics,
| there's no conflict there.
|
| The abuse would be if you think that percentages should
| always refer to portions of the whole. Not sure that's
| correct, though.
| sentrysapper wrote:
| As in it goes against the designed usage (where total is
| 100%), but it still works.
|
| The total ingredients being 170% can be found confusing
| initially. I'm glad the author provided more context and the
| example of a 500g flour recipe.
| jameshart wrote:
| Why does the total have to be 100%?
|
| Do all fractions have to add to 1?
| layer8 wrote:
| Similar for cocktails.
| Woodi wrote:
| We call it here in Poland "baker's percentage" - how much
| ingradients are needed for 100 kg of summed flours.
|
| Eg: recipe for "plain bread" can be:
|
| - 60 - 70 kg wheat flour
|
| - 40 - 30 kg rye flour
|
| - 1.5 - 2 kg yeasts
|
| - 1.8 - 1.5 kg of salt
|
| - 0.x potato starch for keeping loafs unsticked, etc
|
| No water in recipe: a) it's assumed 50% of flour weight (1 liter
| of water equals to 1kg); b) around 40 years ago cost of 50 l of
| water was less then 0.01 zl so it didn't show in price
| calculations.
|
| Very often (in loafs with rye flour) there can be no rye flour
| addition at all - all rye flour is added as sourdough (water and
| rye flour, 50-50), amounts need to be adjusted.
|
| Now, for ingradients for recipe in column one we have: 100 + 1.5
| + 1.8 + 0.x + 50 (water) what gives 153.x kg of raw dough. But
| after baking and storing it some water evaporates so total weight
| of finished product is less then 153.x kg, maybe 135 kg, maybe
| 128 kg - depends on loaf weight - bigger loaf then less water
| evaporates. That number is called "efficiency" of the recipe, you
| can read it in industry standards books for given loaf weight or
| measure yourself by test baking. It is used to calculate product
| price/order or ingradients for given order.
|
| That method is industry standard, we try to teach it to a
| journeymans. If only they didn't have problems with basic %'s...
| H_2O ? What's that ? NaCl ? Forget it. Seriously, what teachers
| in basic schools are doing ??
|
| Confectioners do not use that method, they sum everything and
| substract wastes.
| xani_ wrote:
| > That method is industry standard, we try to teach it to a
| journeymans. If only they didn't have problems with basic
| %'s... H_2O ? What's that ? NaCl ? Forget it. Seriously, what
| teachers in basic schools are doing ??
|
| Teaching it in such uninteresting ways kids don't remember it.
| And I'm not surprised based on funding and wages...
| rmetzler wrote:
| Just the other day my wife misread our bread roll recipe and
| added too much water to the flour. I'm glad, I know bakers math
| and I'm good at mental arithmetic, so the dough could be rescued
| easily.
| sircastor wrote:
| Once when I was a kid I was attempting to make Croissants and I
| misread a recipe and added 3 Tablespoons of salt instead of 3
| teaspoons (and for anyone who doesn't know the math offhand, I
| put in _9 teaspoons_ of salt). Suffice to say, they did not
| turn out.
| devonallie wrote:
| When adding butter, throw away the formula.
| ajfinnie wrote:
| When it comes to Pao Doce (a Portuguese sweet bread), butter is
| an absolutely necessary ingredient. And unquestionably
| delicious!
| yebyen wrote:
| I think people who are downvoting must have misunderstood the
| joke. The joke is, add more butter. It's like estimating for
| an engineer, or adding the appropriate amount of salt and
| spice for a midwestern home cook. You can never ever go high
| enough. Whatever you were about to do with the butter, just
| multiply it by 3x and add 50% more on top again after.
|
| (The one weird hack you wish you didn't know about your
| favorite restaurants' most flavorful dishes!)
| colechristensen wrote:
| Michelin star level mashed potatoes are like a third
| butter, not even exaggerating.
| twawaaay wrote:
| For me the main reason to use bakers' percentage is to design
| recipes.
|
| Once I have designed the recipe in bakers' percentage I use my
| handy spreadsheet to convert this to grams for the final recipe.
|
| When you spend some time making bread you get the hang of how
| things work together. How much is 80, 90 or 100% of water, what
| kind of correction in % of water I need depending on flour
| composition, whether you want 2 or maybe 3% salt for this
| particular bread, how much sourdough starter you want, etc.
|
| I also use large amounts of starter and of very varying
| composition (wet starters, stiff starters, etc.), so even if I
| want to repeat the same recipe I may need to adapt it to a
| different starter.
|
| So this is making the design a very easy process when it would be
| kinda hard when looking at grams.
| mcaravey wrote:
| Commercial baker here. One place where this kind of math gets
| really weird is when the recipe uses multiple kinds of flours. We
| make a loaf that uses three kinds of flour, so this means a
| recipe will have flour percentages that are less than 100%, but
| that sum to 100% so the hydration percentage works.
|
| For example, the recipe might say: Bread Flour 80%, Whole Wheat
| Flour 15%, and Rye Flour 5%. Personally I prefer just treating
| all ingredients as relative weights, and only convert to bakers
| math if needed. That is in large part because I wrote the
| software that is used on the production floor which spits out
| ingredient weights in grams, and no bakers math needed. It also
| keeps it simple for the employees, so they don't have to learn
| how these ratios work.
|
| I'll also mention that the absolute best book on bread ever is
| the Modernist Bread set [0]. It's pricey, but there are extremely
| well explained reasons behind certain methods, and debunking a
| lot of long held beliefs such as the efficacy of the autolyse.
|
| [0] https://modernistcuisine.com/books/modernist-bread/
| sophacles wrote:
| Neat! Im curious - were you in tech before becoming a baker at
| all, or did you pick up the programming skills to help your
| baking career?
|
| I ask because I'm always interested in hearing how non-
| programmers end up programming. I've long held the opinion that
| we (tech that is) should try to make things more programmable
| by users (e.g. game scripting, excel, the "citizen developer"
| world of sharepoint), etc and like to hear how non-tech folks
| use programming to solve problems.
| mcaravey wrote:
| Oh, I do software by trade. The bakery is because it started
| as a family business that I helped get off the ground. My
| background is in B2B payments and construction software. Even
| though the bakery doesn't make as much money as software,
| there's a whole other world of experience to be gained by
| running a blue collar business that runs 20 hours a day, 7
| days a week. Very very different that a software shop.
|
| But to your point, most ERP planning software for bakeries
| sucks badly, like really badly. One of the prominent ones you
| can purchase today runs off a JET database from the 90s, with
| the "cloud" version just being Citrix access to a VM. but
| they all seem to universally require you to print out paper
| every day for every shift, so a ton of people just fall back
| on Excel (using bakers math) to pan production, daily. My
| software runs on an iPad that is kept at each station for
| kind of shift, and it spits out packing sheets and invoices
| from Quickbooks, and integrates with our delivery route
| planner. It would be a full time job to be calculating
| everything from mix quantities to how to pack the final
| product, without mistakes, 7 days a week.
|
| There definitely needs to be better tools for the lay-person
| though. None of my staff can make changes to our custom
| software, but also it is basically impossible to recreate it
| with low/no-code tools. Hence Excel...
| radanskoric wrote:
| quag wrote:
| It's a small world. One of my friends worked on those books. We
| enjoyed a few years eating test bread every time we saw them.
| mcaravey wrote:
| Nice, I'd love to have participated in their testing
| processes. They obviously treated it like a science and
| questioned a ton of institutional wisdom, and the results
| were fantastic.
| perlgeek wrote:
| Is there a "Modernist Bread Essentials" that summarizes it and
| is a bit more affordable?
| eps wrote:
| > the Modernist Bread set. It's pricey...
|
| $625 is not "pricey", it's ridiculuously expensive.
| zasdffaa wrote:
| Depends 100% on what you're going to get out of it/them.
| OJFord wrote:
| I'm not so sure, I had the same reaction to your comment, but
| then clicked through; it's a set of five thick books,
| essentially a history book, two textbooks, and two recipe
| books, at $125ea. Pricey, definitely, but phrased like that I
| think not so ridiculous.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Even for 5 books it comes out to $125 per book _and_ you
| must get all of them.
|
| This doesn't really qualify as pricey.
| Retric wrote:
| It compares more favorably with collage textbooks which
| you could use these as.
|
| Niche books can justifiably command higher prices.
| sneak wrote:
| This, at $500, stretches even my credulity, even as a collector
| of books, lover of bread, and owner of books about bread.
| mcaravey wrote:
| Yeah, it was an investment for sure. But it has allowed us to
| save a ton of time every day (e.g. save 30 minute on the
| autolyse), make tweaks to our recipes to match our processes,
| change our starters (use stiff levain instead of poolish for
| certain breads), and a bunch of other details. Not needed for
| the lay-person. For sourdough I'd opt for the Tartine books.
| eps wrote:
| Autolyse probably is not the best example. I have several
| bread-making books and I don't think a single one advocates
| for autolyse. Not Tartine, not Forkish's, not Reinhart's.
| Lots of youtubers and bloggers love it though, no idea why.
| NaOH wrote:
| Read Calvel on autolyse. He's the person who developed
| the process. While I can't compare his work ( _The Taste
| of Bread_ ) to _Modernist Bread_ (not having read those
| books), he comes at it from a scientific angle, not just
| as a baker.
| jshmrsn wrote:
| Maybe you've already watched it, but Ragusea has a good
| 15m video on the topic, which goes over the chemistry and
| some pros and cons. Basically, it's a trade off of less
| work (kneading) in exchange for more waiting. I imagine
| in an industrial context, it's more efficient to just
| toss the dough into a machine.
|
| https://youtu.be/orpTeX_EGXA
| mcaravey wrote:
| Maybe not, but they do look at that one because a bunch
| of books are totally in favor, and a bunch are either
| against it or ignore it, so coming up with a definitive
| answer was a reasonable thing to do. Other examples of
| time savers would be when to add fats and salts in a
| dough, and proofing and punching times.
|
| I'd need to double check, but I could have sworn that
| Tartine did have an autolyse where they have you wait a
| half hour before adding the salt and last bit of water. I
| don't have the book handy at the moment though...
| eps wrote:
| My bad, Tartine does have a 20 min "rest" step before
| adding salt.
| japhyr wrote:
| You are correct about the Tartine method. Skipping that
| step was one of the first customizations I made to their
| process, and I haven't noticed any difference.
| menage wrote:
| The Tartine Bread book (as of 2018) explicitly recommends
| the autolyse/rest period (page 52, with more explanation
| on page 73).
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Amateur baker here. Perhaps the best insight into baker's math
| is that it depends on a lot of factors: the humidity, the type
| of flour, how coarse/fine it is ground, protein content, etc.
| And then it also depends on your technique and skill creating
| strength and structure. Handling high hydration dough requires
| a lot of skill and not doing it properly means you end up with
| a flat bread rather than a loaf of bread. If it doesn't hold
| it's shape, either your technique is lacking or your hydration
| is too high (or both). Or you bought the wrong flour.
| Seriously, look for decent bread flour on Amazon or wherever.
| Chances are your local super market does not actually sell any
| flour a baker would be happy to use.
|
| The main point of baker's math is not to have recipes that you
| can share on the internet which people can then blindly follow
| but to have a repeatable process that works for the flour you
| use and whatever level of technique/skill you have.
|
| Say you bake bread with a certain type of flour at a 75%
| hydration and you had a hard time shaping the dough; next time
| using the same flour drop the percentage to 70% and you might
| have an easier time and if you are happy with the bread you
| stick with that hydration. Or work on your technique. Or both.
| If you switch flour brand or type, you'll have to figure out
| the optimum hydration level again. But being systematic about
| weighing out your ingredients means you can at least repeat it
| once you get to the optimal ratios.
| Pinus wrote:
| I tend to think of this as cocktail math. :)
| just_boost_it wrote:
| This is how concrete mixes are specified as well, all relative to
| the mass of cement.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| That is actually the more inconvenient way to do it. Much better
| is to start with 1kg end product weight and then use percentages
| of that. Scaling is also easier.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| _For example, let 's take a typical formula for French bread:
| Flour: 100% Water: 66% Salt: 2% Instant yeast:
| 0.6% Total: 170%
|
| _
|
| My brain will not stop telling me that the total is 168.6%.
| ycombinete wrote:
| You get used to it. In practice it makes things very simple!
| Especially if you have a scale with a % option [0], but even
| without if you're cooking with nice round metric weights.
|
| I just chuck some flour on the scale, whack the % symbol, and
| use the set percentages for everything else.
|
| [1] https://myweigh.com/product/kd8000/
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > You get used to it.
|
| You do. The single most important factor is "what does the
| dough feel like - how stiff and hard, or how loose and wet?"
|
| The water % captures this in 1 number.
|
| e.g. A 60% hydration pizza dough is much stiffer than a 80%
| hydration focaccia dough.
|
| Just by seeing that one number, I get an idea of how the
| dough is going to be to work with.
| nsb1 wrote:
| Yeah, but what you're saying is essentially "I don't need
| the recipe anymore - I can do this by feel", which is
| awesome, but who then is the recipe for except people who
| are trying to learn? Maybe throw us a bone :)
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Yeah, but what you're saying is essentially "I don't
| need the recipe anymore - I can do this by feel"
|
| I'm really not.
|
| I don't do it "by feel", I measure everything in grams,
| including water. I hate recipes in "cups" since a cup of
| flour or salt is not a fixed quantity - it depends on
| grain size, how hard you pack it down, the weather etc.
| But 10g salt is a fixed amount.
|
| I'm just saying that "500g flour, 60% hydration" tells me
| a lot about both how to measure it accurately (300g
| water), and how it will feel (fairly stiff). It's an
| accurate part of the recipe, expressed in the fewest
| numbers.
|
| The % is scale-invariant.
| foobarian wrote:
| If ambient humidity can affect moisture content of flour,
| then you have more unknowns than constraints and
| hydration % is not enough. Doing it by feel would seem to
| be required to get an end-to-end result.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Yes, though that isn't such a big deal for me, as I'm not
| in a desert or a rainforest, the ambient humidity here is
| middling and doesn't vary so much. Minor changes are not
| very important. Flour gets stored in sealed containers,
| and compensations for the changes during baking are
| minor. e.g. the cloth over the dough is moistened during
| summer. Ambient humidity maybe matters like a 1-2%
| difference here, not a 10% difference.
|
| I do notice seasonal changes, but that's IMHO more due to
| changes in ambient room temperature than anything else.
|
| Also, I would say that measuring in grams allows you to
| notice and more accurately quantify that "it's dryer than
| usual today for the same quantities - must be due to the
| ambient conditions that require an adjustment".
| crdrost wrote:
| He/she is saying something slightly different, not "I
| like that I can do this by feel without percentages" but
| rather "I like how, by a quick glance at this percentage,
| I know something about how that will feel in the bowl."
|
| 60% hydration: firmer, like Play-Doh without the
| crumbling
|
| 70% hydration: softer and maybe a little sticky
|
| 80% hydration: super sticky, still kneadable
|
| Really high hydration requires a lot more care, both to
| stop it from getting everywhere and to get it kneaded
| enough that it actually rises (if that is even desired)
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Exactly that.
|
| it's a single, scale-invariant number that conveys
| important information. And can be used to weigh
| accurately.
| kzrdude wrote:
| The recipe is for yourself so you can remember how to do
| the same nice thing again.
| sva_ wrote:
| I just use 80% hydration, it makes things easier and tastier.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| A bit messy though.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Depends a lot of ambient humidity. When I lived in the
| North of Ireland (rainforest humidity) I always had to
| vastly reduce the humidity level of every recipe, sometimes
| by as much as half, otherwise I'd be drinking my baguettes.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| So true, I just ruined a rye loaf by under-hydrating it
| at 65%, but I live in the desert. Lesson learned!
|
| I find it also depends on your flour, even batch to batch
| (we buy 50 lb bags). Some have higher moisture content
| and one needs to adjust by a few % even in the same
| external conditions.
| tromp wrote:
| The article mentions "rounded to nearest gram" but clearly they
| also round to nearest percent...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| If you're working with 500g or 1000g of flour, then to the
| nearest gram is easily precise enough.
|
| If you're measuring 8g of salt, then yeah, maybe you want
| 8.0g - to the first decimal point.
|
| If you're going beyond that, then where did you get your
| scale, how much did it cost, what are the benefits and how do
| you find using it? Do you tweezer salt grains, for instance?
| mcdonje wrote:
| Yeah, the total is wrong. It's not a weird bakers' math total.
| It's a wrong total.
|
| If you used the formula with a base of 1000 grams of flour,
| that's: water: 660g salt: 20g
| yeast: 6g
|
| That adds to 1686g of dough.
|
| Usually, bakers allow for a reasonably large margin of error,
| and they'll also intentionally diverge from a formula based on
| circumstance or whim. Getting to 1700 from 1686 would take an
| intentional diversion.
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| Think of it as a ratio(+) not percentages so
|
| Flour 100 parts, water 66 parts and so on
|
| (+) because that is what it is
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Think of it as a ratio(+) not percentages so
|
| > Flour 100 parts, water 66 parts and so on
|
| > (+) because that is what it is
|
| It is! But it's a ratio to a standard 100 ... and that's
| literally what a percentage is ("per centum" = "by the
| hundred").
| jameshart wrote:
| Think of all the numbers as only having two significant figures
| nsb1 wrote:
| Exactly this. It's this sort of thing that annoys me about
| recipes in general, but bread recipes in particular.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| This is also how it works in meat curing, etc world. If I'm
| making a pork sausage, for example, all ingredient amounts are
| listed in terms of the weight of the meat.
| stormdennis wrote:
| Should it not be Bakers' Math?
| tromp wrote:
| It certainly should be, as this guy explains
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFGv6wd5Y8
| pessimizer wrote:
| That would be an insult to Mr. Baker.
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