About

Why?

I never ended up buying that set of measuring spoons. Searching for the right measuring spoon takes longer than weighing the ingredients. My scale is always on the counter for making coffee anyway.

But really, Why?

Many people have espoused the benefits of weight-based baking. “Throw Out Your Measuring Cups” as Thomas Keller and Sebastian Rouxel proclaim in Bouchon Bakery.

In The Food Lab, J. Kenji López-Alt asked ten friends to measure a cup of flour and found that the difference in weight varied by as much as 50%!

Ok, but does it work for everything?

Yes, but with stipulations. Many kitchen scales don’t measure at high enough resolution to accurately weigh tiny amounts. Most kitchen scales only have 1 gram resolution, meaning that the scale will report 1 gram for anywhere between 0.5g to 1.49g. If you’re measuring something like baking soda, this can be a huge difference! In these cases I usually keep around a ¼ tsp scoop or use a higher resolution scale.

What kind of scale do I need?

You don’t need anything too fancy to cover 90% of most use cases. I’ve been using this simple and budget conscious Ozeri scale for most of my baking, cooking, and coffee making. It has two physical buttons, 1g resolution, and a capacity of 5.1kg. The only issue I have with it is that it responds a bit slowly to weight change.

I also own a higher resolution (0.1g), but lower capacity (2kg) scale that I use for measuring smaller quantities and making espresso or pourovers.

My primary criteria for scales are physical buttons and a non-glass top.

How do I know that my scale is accurate?

I’ve avoided buying calibrated weights since, outside of testing a scale, they’re more or less expensive paperweights. I’ve been using items I can look up the weight of to test the accuracy of my scale. Here are some example weights of things:

However, I find that it’s not that important to be 100% accurate. As long as ingredients are in the right proportion, things should work out. If your scale is slightly off, the discrepancy should be the same for any ingredient.

What was your inspiration?

As many other people who sheltered in place during the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, my baking frequency increased greatly. I quickly got tired of looking up every ingredient manually and writing them down.

According to this XKCD comic and given how long this project took, I don’t think I’ll ever save enough time in my life to make up for creating this. However I hope that our cumulative time saved is much greater!

Can you add an ingredient?

Sure! If you provide me with the ingredient and its corresponding volume to mass conversion, I can add it to the list. Tweet at me @kevinwuhoo to get in touch!

Can you add a feature?

Maybe! My time is pretty limited but I’m happy to chat. Tweet at me @kevinwuhoo to get in touch!