Determining Accurate Measure

[Shel_B]

This afternoon I bought a new set of measuring spoons which got me to wondering how accurate they are. What's the best way to determine their accuracy? Also, how important is it that they be precise? I'd imagine that for some situations consistancy is important, but in what circumstances should the measure be completely accurate? How much deviation from the actual measurement might be acceptable? Thanks!

[Joe Blowe]

If one is concerned about accuracy, then it's time to get a scale.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

If one is concerned about accuracy, then it's time to get a scale.

I don't know, now, how I lived without one. Life is short; a digital scales tares out after each addition, making add-ins no brainers.

You probably don't need one for potato salad. But if you bake....

[Shel_B]

OK, so what if I get a scale, and a recipe calls for a specific measured amount of an ingredient. How do I know what it's supposed to weigh?

[Chris Hennes]

For that you need either a) a table like the ones in Modernist Cuisine, which list the weight of a large range of ingredients, or b) a new recipe . Neither is a very appealing option, but again, if you want to start talking about accuracy, then it's time to upgrade your measuring utensils and your cookbooks. There's no point in worrying about it if your recipes were written with a ton of slop in mind.

[ojisan]

Annoyingly, most cookbooks do not measure their ingredients by weight.

[AAQuesada]

You are pretty much SOL. Measuring spoons are not particularly consistent and you can't easily convert to weight because different powders (salt, flour, baking powder ect) will weigh differently. You can of course R&D all your recipes and convert volume to weight.

The truth is it doesn't matter all that much most most things as long as you are in the ball park, measuring spoons are plenty accurate for home cooking. When you start doing things in quantity production OTOH..

[maggiethecat]

The truth is it doesn't matter all that much most most things as long as you are in the ball park, measuring spoons are plenty accurate for home cooking. When you start doing things in quantity production OTOH..

Thank you. Unless you're in a production pastry kitchen or Desperately Seeking Nathan, a generic kitchen scale , cup measures and a set of measuring spoons work just fine.

[nickrey]

Most (non-pastry) professional chefs that I know tend to measure by eye and adjust for taste afterwards. If a cookbook written by a chef has measures, it's likely to be an estimate of what they do by intuition anyway.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

It also depends on if you use many foreign recipes, most of which use dry weight and metric liquid measure. It takes a bit of re-thinking, but becomes second nature.

As in most cooking, if you are consistent in your procedure, it doesn't matter which measuring system you use. There is a well known cake recipe that calls for a carton of yogurt, then calibrates all/most other ingredients by how many yogurt containers worth of flour, butter, etc.

And many French recipes call for a "glass of wine" or such. It worked for Grandma. Should for us.

[TheTInCook]

I'd also suggest getting a digital scale that has 0.01g resolution and like accuracy, in addition to your normal kitchen digital scale.

For instance, I was making a batch of sponge toffee the other week and I needed 1g of gelatin for it. My regular scale has 1g gram resolution, but it is not sensitive or accurate enough to measure out just 1g of something. The recipe solved the problem by making a quintuple batch of hydrated gelatin, and taking a fraction of it. I avoided that waste of gelatin since I had that handy 0.01g scale. I just wish I could get my roommate to stop making drug dealer jokes when he sees me using it. (It got worse today. I was roasting some baking soda to get sodium carbonate for making raman noodles, and starts joking like I'm making crack cocaine @-@)

[Mjx]

!00% in agreement about the importance of [a] scale(s), but for liquids, especially small quantities, I prefer volume measure (I think I just got used to this during endless bio labs as an undergrad), and I recommend a graduated pipette (you can either use it instead of measuring spoons, or simply to determine whether or not they are accurate; if they aren't, bring them back to the shop, and try another make).

[Shel_B]

[...]but for liquids, especially small quantities, I prefer volume measure (I think I just got used to this during endless bio labs as an undergrad), and I recommend a graduated pipette (you can either use it instead of measuring spoons, or simply to determine whether or not they are accurate; if they aren't, bring them back to the shop, and try another make).

That's just the answer I needed. Thank you so much. I could probably use a lab beaker for larger measurements, such as cups.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Shel_B (log)

[rotuts]

as above:

scale = baking (decent ones are about $ 50 )

volume measurements = fine for everything else.

be careful on those 'chemistry beakers' those markings on the side of the Pyrex are not that accurate some times.

after you get your scale, weigh the water at those markings and that will tell you how accurate they are for volume.

[qrn]

+1 on using scale for baking..I would be lost without it,and that it makes it lots easier to scale sizes of batches

Bud

[Kouign Aman]

If its really important, you can calibrate them. Water weighs 1 gram per mL. Find out how many mLs a teaspoon etc is,

tare a scale, weigh the water. Do this 10x, average the result. For this you need only borrow a scale, not buy one.

Note - dont try to empty and retare between replicates, just keep a tab of the changing weight and do the math. Faster.

This works for precision micropipetter calibration. I suspect you'll find your biggest source of variation is in how you fill the spoons. Heaping, or a raised meniscus will be things to control for.

[Kouign Aman]

Lab beakers are generally accurate to 5%. That's not all that good. and again that depends on the consistency of your technique in reading the line. You are more likely to be reproducible running a knife over the top of a measuring cup than filling to a partial line part way up the side of a beaker.

[Edward J]

!00% in agreement about the importance of [a] scale(s), but for liquids, especially small quantities, I prefer volume measure (I think I just got used to this during endless bio labs as an undergrad), and I recommend a graduated pipette (you can either use it instead of measuring spoons, or simply to determine whether or not they are accurate; if they aren't, bring them back to the shop, and try another make).

This is something I have great difficulty in understanding. Everything has weight, even aircraft measure their fuel not by volume but by weight. Production bakers scale out their water, they don't measure it

A kilogram of water is exactly one liter, or a liter is exactly one kilo. Folks, it doesn't get much simpler than that. If your scale is accurate to 1 gram, then you'll be very accurate with measuring liquids on a scale.

All my recipies list liquids by weight. Eggs, milk, water, oil, booze, all by weight. It's simpler, faster, easier to read, and no graduated beakers to wash or to fall over and break.

[Mjx]

!00% in agreement about the importance of [a] scale(s), but for liquids, especially small quantities, I prefer volume measure (I think I just got used to this during endless bio labs as an undergrad), and I recommend a graduated pipette (you can either use it instead of measuring spoons, or simply to determine whether or not they are accurate; if they aren't, bring them back to the shop, and try another make).

This is something I have great difficulty in understanding. Everything has weight, even aircraft measure their fuel not by volume but by weight. Production bakers scale out their water, they don't measure it

A kilogram of water is exactly one liter, or a liter is exactly one kilo. Folks, it doesn't get much simpler than that. If your scale is accurate to 1 gram, then you'll be very accurate with measuring liquids on a scale.

All my recipies list liquids by weight. Eggs, milk, water, oil, booze, all by weight. It's simpler, faster, easier to read, and no graduated beakers to wash or to fall over and break.

Just curious: What weights do your recipes give for amounts of ingredients such the quantity of almond essence used in a cake? What vessels do you use when weighing these quantities?

I use a scale for dry ingredients things, and have for a long time, regardless of which side of the Atlantic I've happened to be on, but even in the EU, small quantities of ingredients (both liquid and solid, in fact) are, without any exceptions that I've come across, given as 'spoon' measures (I don't think they even refer to actual measuring spoons, but that's another story).

I prefer volume measures for small quantities of liquids, because if measured out into a container significantly larger than a measuring spoon, the amount of fluid retained by the inside of the measuring vessel when pouring into the mixing bowl mitigates any posited increased accuracy you might obtain by the use of weight as opposed to volume. I'm all for precision, but for this purpose, a graduated pipette is at least as accurate as a scale (presumably the reason labs use them), even if it only used preliminarily as a calibration tool (much easier to clean the olive oil off a tablespoon, than from the inside of a pipette).

[nickrey]

I'm all for accuracy as well but let's face it, we are talking cooking not rocket science.

Let's even talk about the dirty little secret that even with pastry you measure according to the recipe, then you adjust to give the correct feel. Humidity in the air, different gluten contents, etc. will all mitigate against creating a standard product by measurement alone. If this were not the case, we wouldn't have expert pastry chefs.

If the original recipe is not accurate, which as I said earlier is likely, no amount of error caused by liquid sticking inside vessels or the like is going to make one iota of difference.

If you feel happier getting a more accurate instrument, that's great. If you use an approximate that's also great, particularly as recipes tend to be approximations anyway.

The benefit of using weight comes from differences such as the fineness of grind (eg. using fine salt versus coarse salt when a teaspoon is specified can give a huge variation in seasoning unrelated to the accuracy of the measuring instrument).

My recommendation is to follow the rest of the world and use the metric system of weights. As someone said above, one liter of water equals one kilo. Easy to remember, easy to use. If tablespoons, teaspoons, etc are used, make sure you have the appropriate ones for the recipe you use: they differ around the world so you not only have an inaccurate measure, it can be more inaccurate if you don't know the volumes involved.

Most of all relax: measure to some accuracy, then taste, then adjust. Balance is all important and this is an art rather than a science.

[Chris Hennes]

measure to some accuracy, then taste, then adjust.

This. Accuracy is great when you are trying to precisely recreate someone else's recipe, but it only matters if they were accurate, too. And they probably weren't. Taste, taste, taste.

[Kouign Aman]

even with pastry you measure according to the recipe, then you adjust to give the correct feel. Humidity in the air, different gluten contents, etc. will all mitigate against creating a standard product by measurement alone.

And this.

All I had to do was move 5 miles closer to the coast and the fluid measurements for all my baking and rice recipes needed to be adjusted down a startling (to me) amount.

[Chris Hennes]

Yeah, baking is particularly tricky: unless the author is really good at describing the expected texture of a dough it's a bit of a crap shoot, and it barely matters how carefully you measure. Without knowing what you're supposed to end up with you're stuck with just following the recipe as best you can and resigning yourself to some trial and error.

[Edward J]

[Just curious: What weights do your recipes give for amounts of ingredients such the quantity of almond essence used in a cake? What vessels do you use when weighing these quantities?

Easy peasy. Say for example almond ess. that's going into a cookie dough. I scale out my sugar in the mixing bowl, tare off, add in my butter, tare off, add in my almond ess. and/or vanilla--usually 3-5 grams per kg of finished product.c

[IndyRob]

A kilogram of water is exactly one liter, or a liter is exactly one kilo. Folks, it doesn't get much simpler than that. If your scale is accurate to 1 gram, then you'll be very accurate with measuring liquids on a scale.

BTW, I've discovered that wolframalpha has densities of various foodstuffs. Type in 'egg', for instance, and among the results will be Serving Density - 1 gm/cm³ (most liquid ingredient densities seem to vary little from water).