Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95364

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:16:15 GMT, "Dick Adams" >
wrote:

>http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95364


Dick, many thanks for that tip. I went down to one of their retail
stores a few hours ago and bought one. I've inspected and tested it,
and it's as good a consumer-grade electronic scale as you'll find,
regardless of price. I'd recommend it to anyone who needs a scale for
baking.

The $19.99 sale price is meant for online purchasers, but their retail
stores will honor it, too, as long as you print out the web page,
bring it in the store with you, and show it to the cashier.

Mort Goldberg (regular lurker; occasional poster)
"'Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out
and remove all doubt" --- Mark Twain

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

That scale looks good - but nowhere I can see what precision this scale
has - 1, 2, 3, 5 g?

I asked harborfreight tech support that question.

Sam

Dick Adams wrote:
> http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95364
> _______________________________________________
> Rec.food.sourdough mailing list
>
> http://www.mountainbitwarrior.com/ma...food.sourdough
>
>

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

Sam wrote:
> That scale looks good - but nowhere I can see what precision this scale
> has - 1, 2, 3, 5 g?
>
>
I hate to weigh in on the matter, but as long as you are doing
sourdough, it really doesn't matter THAT much.

However, there are a few other options. Go to eBay and look for "My
Weigh 7001DX" in both the title and description. You'll find a number
of reputable vendors selling it for as little as $10 plus shipping. It
will weigh up to 7,000 grams (15 pounds) to a resolution of 1 gram.

Search for "ultraship" and you'll find some My Weigh shipping scales
starting at $15 or so. They come in 35, 55, and 75 pound flavors. They
read to within 2 grams up to about 1,000 grams and then to within 10
grams for the rest of their range. More than accurate enough for sourdough.

I have used My Weigh scales for a number of years and I've only lost one
set - I poured water on it by accident and the scales were unhappy after
that.

Mike

--
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

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Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

On 2007-11-09, Mike Avery > wrote:
[...]
> I have used My Weigh scales for a number of years and I've only lost one
> set - I poured water on it by accident and the scales were unhappy after
> that.

I love my My Weigh 7001DX. It is a great deal for the money -- try to
find another scale with 7kg range and 1g precision over the whole
range. Mine survived having coffee poured over it. I had to dry it
out thoroughly, but it still works and I confirmed that it's still
accurate with a 200g lab weight. The buttons occasionally stick a
little since the coffee incident, though, but a little wiggling
usually works.

If I were going to buy another one right now, I think I'd shell out a
few more bucks and get one that's more sealed against liquids, like
the KD-7000 (same range and precision as the 7001DX, but more
gunk-proof). I also have a 0.1g precision model -- the Triton T2 550
-- which I use for weighing things like salt, yeast, baking soda, etc.
(Obviously, the only one relevant to sourdough would be salt.) It can
do 0.1g all the way up to 550g, so I sometimes use it even for bigger
jobs.

--
Randall

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

Mike Avery wrote:
> Sam wrote:
>> That scale looks good - but nowhere I can see what precision this
>> scale has - 1, 2, 3, 5 g?
>>
>>
> I hate to weigh in on the matter, but as long as you are doing
> sourdough, it really doesn't matter THAT much.

Well, I do rely on mine to be pretty close, when I'm weighing in salt...

Dav

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

Dave Bell wrote:
> Mike Avery wrote:
>
>> weigh in on the matter, but as long as you are doing
>> sourdough, it really doesn't matter THAT much.
>>
>
> Well, I do rely on mine to be pretty close, when I'm weighing in salt...
>
>

Some folks who seem to think I measure everything to the nearest ten
thousandth of a gram and that I am obsessively "scientific" or obsessed
with toys may have trouble believing I am writing this. Oh well. Life
goes on.

Anyway, let's imagine we're making two 1.5 loaves of bread at around 70%
hydration. Before baking, I like to have each loaf around 770 grams to
accommodate for baking loss, so I need to put about 1,540 grams of dough
into the oven. It's a holdover from commercial baking. No one cares
what you put in the oven, they want the weight of bread that is stated
on the label, so you put in a bit more than the desired end weight of
the bread.

Of that 1,540 grams of dough, figure about 170 grams is starter, of
which half is flour, and there are another 950 grams of assorted flour
in the loaf, for a total of around 1,120 grams of flour.

Most bread doughs run about 2% (as a baker's percentage) salt, so we're
looking at about 22.4 grams of salt..

Now then.... how much error do we have under different circumstances?
It depends on how you look at it. (We'll ignore, at least for now, a
discussion of the differences between accuracy, repeatability and
resolution and just assume we have fairly well behaved scales.)

If you have a scale that is resolves to .1 gram, you could weigh
anywhere from just over 22.3 to just under 22.5 grams and still
conceivably show 22.4. At first glance, that looks like an error of as
much as .1 gram, or .44%

If you have a scale that is resolves to 1 gram, you could weigh anywhere
from 22 to 23 grams. And your error would be as much as .6 grams, which
look like an error of 2.7% (The greatest error would be 23-22.4, or .6
grams.)

If you have a scale that resolves to the nearest 2 grams, you could
weigh anywhere from 20 to 24 grams and show 22. Your error could be as
much as 2.4 grams, which would look like an error of 10.7%. (The
greatest error would be 22.4 - 20, or 2.4 grams.)

However, I am inclined to think that the error we are interested in is
with regards to the bakers percentage, not to the desired weight of the
salt.

And the range of bakers percentage of salt that we measured out would
range from 2.05% (with the .1 gram scales) to 1.78% using the 2 gram
resolution scales. Or an error ranging from .05% to .22%. In short,
sometimes it's not worth chasing the last 2 decimal points. I doubt
anyone could taste, or tell, the difference between using 2% salt, 2.05%
salt or 1.78% salt. Any of them are much closer than you will get with
teaspoons, and in the grand scheme of things, the little errors in the
weights just aren't that important.

Mike


--
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day:
Now is the time for all good men to come to. -- Walt Kelly

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

Mike Avery wrote:
> Sam wrote:
>
>> That scale looks good - but nowhere I can see what precision this scale
>> has - 1, 2, 3, 5 g?
>>
>>
>>
> I hate to weigh in on the matter, but as long as you are doing
> sourdough, it really doesn't matter THAT much.
>
>
That depends - I deal with smaller amounts when growing starters or
other ingredients.

+- 5 on 20 g sure can be an issue and getting baking losses when every
ingredient is measured individually with a certain tolerance in addition
to one's own inaccuracy - why is it now off that much? Where did I mess up?

Also - my amounts as home baker are relatively small, inaccuracies add
up. When growing starter in multiple stages, there are fermentation
losses. If one wants to get - just for the fun of it - a hold on those
values, even 1 g accuracy may not be enough.

And when getting a new one, why not get it right. Thanks for the reference.

that's what Harborfreight had to say:
>
>> There is not spec that shows the accuracy.
>>
>> Glenn Bronner
>> Customer Service Supervisor
>>
The Escali I had started "floating" at low weights - one plastic bag, 3
g in tare would disappear. The off button was dysfunctional for a long
time and now the display had to show everything all the time.
> However, there are a few other options. Go to eBay and look for "My
> Weigh 7001DX" in both the title and description. You'll find a number
> of reputable vendors selling it for as little as $10 plus shipping. It
> will weigh up to 7,000 grams (15 pounds) to a resolution of 1 gram.
>
>
Thanks for the links - seems to be good, ordered one.

> Search for "ultraship" and you'll find some My Weigh shipping scales
> starting at $15 or so. They come in 35, 55, and 75 pound flavors. They
> read to within 2 grams up to about 1,000 grams and then to within 10
> grams for the rest of their range. More than accurate enough for sourdough.
>
> I have used My Weigh scales for a number of years and I've only lost one
> set - I poured water on it by accident and the scales were unhappy after
> that.
>
> Mike
>
>

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

"Dave Bell" > wrote in message et...

> Well, I do rely on mine to be pretty close, when I'm weighing in salt...

A neat little pile of salt in the middle of my palm is the right amount
for 6 cups of flour. Every now and then I check the amount with
a scale, and its always quite close to 20 grams. Similarly, a cup of
my flour weighs quite close to 5.5 ounces ~ 156 grams. But really,
now, that is just a curiosity.

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

I realized one thing they never precise on the specifications of
scales is the speed of display.
While this can be quite important for some people who like to weigh
things very quickly (eg. bread rolls)

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

Sam > wrote:
> []

This one, from the US Postal Service is only good up to 10 Lbs. I have one
and am quite pleased with it.

http://tinyurl.com/qzh6h

--
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Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

On 10 Nov, 02:11, Dave Bell > wrote:

> Well, I do rely on mine to be pretty close, when I'm weighing in salt...
>
> Dave

Me too. Unfortunately I managed to kill my MyWeigh somehow, maybe they
were overloaded while in the cupboard. The scales I have now aren't so
good at small amounts. They are accurate to 1 g but only if you put it
on all at once, you can get about 5 grams of error at least if you ad
things slowly. I've seen quite a few different scales like this,
including the Alessi ones which are really not cheap at all. I get
round this error by adding the salt pot lid to the scale, zero it,
take it off, add the salt and return the lid to the scale then repeat
for adjustment, It's not great but works well.

I rarely bake the same amount of bread each recipe so I never get used
to guess the exact amount. I guess the amount of starter, I can work
around that.

I recently bought my Mother in law some Salter scales that didn't do
this and they were only £20 as apposed to the £35 I paid for both the
Hanson book scale and the MyWeigh.

Jim

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

"TG" > wrote in message
ups.com...
On 10 Nov, 02:11, Dave Bell > wrote:

> Well, I do rely on mine to be pretty close, when I'm weighing in salt...
>
> Dave

Me too. Unfortunately I managed to kill my MyWeigh somehow, maybe they
were overloaded while in the cupboard. The scales I have now aren't so
good at small amounts. They are accurate to 1 g but only if you put it
on all at once, you can get about 5 grams of error at least if you ad
things slowly. I've seen quite a few different scales like this,
including the Alessi ones which are really not cheap at all. I get
round this error by adding the salt pot lid to the scale, zero it,
take it off, add the salt and return the lid to the scale then repeat
for adjustment, It's not great but works well.

I rarely bake the same amount of bread each recipe so I never get used
to guess the exact amount. I guess the amount of starter, I can work
around that.

I recently bought my Mother in law some Salter scales that didn't do
this and they were only £20 as apposed to the £35 I paid for both the
Hanson book scale and the MyWeigh.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
When adding small amounts and the read-out doesn't change, I touch the
platform briefly.
The weight then shows correctly.
Graham

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

> A neat little pile of salt in the middle of my palm is the right amount
> for 6 cups of flour. Every now and then I check the amount with
> a scale, and its always quite close to 20 grams. Similarly, a cup of
> my flour weighs quite close to 5.5 ounces ~ 156 grams. But really,
> now, that is just a curiosity.


Indeed a curiosity. My hand changes day to day. When I'm baking a lot,
the hand muscles minimize the little palm divit. And conversley, my
bread is excessively salty when my hands go to pot. This is the reason
I have a scale. The amount of salt is so important to me that I found
a lab scale accurate to within .00001 kg. Or perhaps for those working
class folk, find a decent board in the upscale neighborhood trash,
should the blockade allow your ingress, and balance it on the salt
shaker. You might need a notch in the board.
-erich

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

>The amount of salt is so important to me that I found
> a lab scale accurate to within .00001 kg.

Do you weigh your salt with your lab scale when you're cooking your
dinner?

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

viince wrote:

>
>>The amount of salt is so important to me that I found
>> a lab scale accurate to within .00001 kg.
>
> Do you weigh your salt with your lab scale when you're cooking your
> dinner?
Sure why not after paying that much money for scales why not use them?

Joe Umstead

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

> wrote in message oups.com...

> The amount of salt is so important to me that I found
> a lab scale accurate to within .00001 kg.

Accurate to 10,000,000,000 picograms. You should try
not to get all puffed up and self-important about your
precision.

Myself, I am quite proud of my imprecision, and it cannot
be assailed. Well, possibly matched by my immoderation.

--
Dicky

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

> Accurate to 10,000,000,000 picograms. You should try
> not to get all puffed up and self-important about your
> precision.

Thanks for the advice. Confession: I do not have said scale; rather, I
took a head beating by cops pulling piece of worn teak deck from
"wrong" trash can. I pretend to have the board.

> Myself, I am quite proud of my imprecision, and it cannot
> be assailed. Well, possibly matched by my immoderation.

While I'm not proud of my imprecisions, from which others suffer ad
nauseum, my immoderation comes accidentally from spilling an imaginary
salt shaker during a delicate unnotched teak scale operation.

-Erich

Cheap digital scale (up to 11 lbs.)
 

On 12 Nov, 17:22, "graham" > wrote:
....
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> When adding small amounts and the read-out doesn't change, I touch the
> platform briefly.
> The weight then shows correctly.
> Graham

I'll try that Graham. Thanks, sorry been mega busy this week not
checked in in a while

Jim