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Baker's percentage calculator for android


glennbech

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Hi,

I have been baking bread for some years now and often bake with indirect doughs with large pre-ferments that I keep over night. More often than I want to admit I have no time for recipes and use what I have available within reasonable bounds of course.

This led me to the development of an Android Smart phone application that calculate a recipe based on a baker's percentages formula. For those not familiar with the term, baker's percentages are recipes where all ingredients are given against the total flour weight. This notation makes for recipes that are very easy to scale, and you can easily see if a recipe will give a sticky/rustic or stiff/bagelish dough.

With the app, I just enter the flour weight I want, and it calculates the pre-ferment size (and ingredients) for me. It also calculates the contents of the rest of the dough that will be mixed in later.

The application suggests reasonable numbers for all ingredients and starts off with a "standard" recipe (65% water, 1% yeast, 5% fat, 2% salt)

It is n a very early development stage, and I was hoping for feedback from bread enthusiasts (that I know I can find here!) before I develop the application further. So, if anyone would like to download the Smart phone application for Android phones, it can be found here;

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.glennbech.prefermentz&feature=search_result

I am also attaching some screenshots so that "non android" users can have a look.

Feedback & feature wishes wanted! :-)

screenshot1.png

screenshot2.png

screenshot3.png

screenshot5.png

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Hi Norm,

Thanks for the feedback.

Do you mean different flour types (rye/wheat) or different kinds of wheat? (Strong/weak) I see a variation even within the same

brand of the AP flour that I use.

I usually mix in up to 35% of a non-wheat flour in my bread, usually rye/barley. The 65 baker's percentage of water holds up "pretty good" for

such recipes.

I will implement different flour types, and other "dry stuffs" like sugar later. I also have to add support for other

liquids like milk, buttermilk and eggs as well.

I also want to add support for saving your own recipes, and also think that I will bundle some recipes with the application. Those recipes will of course

account for the different kinds of flour and their reaction to water.

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Both. Rye, whole wheat, white whole wheat, Southern AP flour, Northern AP flour, bread flour all take different amounts of water to make a dough. Shirley Corriher says humidity does NOT play a significant factor in water absorption and I believe her but some say that time of year flour is harvested and age can make a difference. I believe that the only way to make yeast bread is to not measure the flour by cups or scale, but add it a little at a time until a soft dough is formed, then knead by hand with minimal additions of flour until it 'feels' right. I look askance at people who tell you precise amounts of flour to be used in any bread recipe. You need an eye and a touch to make good bread.

edit, ps most food scientists will tell you that sugar is not a dry ingredient even though it is a powder when you put it in. Don't ask me why.

Edited by Norm Matthews (log)
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I totally agree with you on the flour issue. I usually start of with a wetter dough than the

recipe states and add until I am happy.

I do find Baker's percentage formula great for comparing recipes, getting a quick overview of them (firm/rustic, lean/rich etc),

and for scaling. Hence the tool.

Initial feedback suggests that I should include some basic recipes. Probably a good idea :-)

edit, ps most food scientists will tell you that sugar is not a dry ingredient even though it is a powder when you put it in. Don't ask me why.

Probably because it quickly dissolves into "fluid state" from its crystalized form when it is incorporated into the dough.

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