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Howdo I handle salt and yeast when tripleing a recipe

busy lizzy's picture
busy lizzy

Howdo I handle salt and yeast when tripleing a recipe

I'm in the process of making King Arthur's No Knead Whole Wheat  Bread that I got form this site  made by Country boy.  I want to make 6 times the recipe and one recipe calles for 2 teas yeast and 1 1/4 t of salt,  I know I can do 6 of everything else but there is only 5 lbs of WW flour and I know I can't use 7 1/2 tes of salt or 12 teas of yeast .  How much do I use?

flournwater's picture
flournwater

5 pounds of flour is 2268 grams so if you're using a 1 percent ratio of instant yeast to flour you'll need about 23 grams of yeast.  If you're using instant yeast where a packet of yeast holds 7 grams (about 2 1/4 tsp) then your 12 tsp. is more yeast than you'd probably want to use.  However, if you're using active dry yeast, you'd probably want to use about 1.5 times the amount of instant yeast or about 37 grams.  So 12 teaspoons isn't beyond what might appear to be reasonable.  Your salt, on the other hand, is more difficult to calculalte.  Depending on the salt, a teaspoon can vary in weight over as significant range.  If you're looking at 2268 grams of flour with a 2% salt  influence you'll need about 45 grams of table salt.  7 1/2 tsp of table salt will, usually, come out to about 43 grams, depending upon who's measuring spoon set you're using.  Nevertheless, looks to me like your formula is fairly accurate with respect to intended ratios.

Caveat  -  You may already be aware of this fact, but in case you're not, accuracy in measuring spoons can vary quite a lot.  Unless you have the exact same set of measuring tools that the creater of your recipe/formula used, you're unlikely to be right on target no matter how hard you try (another endorsement for weighing ingredients) and when you begin to increase or reduce a formula like that you're entering a jungle that is not always friendly.

ananda's picture
ananda

Hi,

I'm sure flournwater's calculations are spot-on.

The caveat says only one thing to me: time to invest in a set of digital scales and weigh all your ingredients.   Learn to work in one unit of measurement for simplicity; whichever suits best.   I calculate the formula in bakers % and then work out the recipe in grams.   It's easy to use metric, as everything is divisible by 10, 100, etc.   But you can work lbs and ozs if that's your bag; just be consistent with one unit of measurement.   Everybody says this: once you start weighing, you never go back to volume...and tsp count as volume in my book.

Best wishes

Andy

busy lizzy's picture
busy lizzy

Hi, I did what flournwater suggested and the bread was fine.  I did go out and buy a scale at Macy's It was a Martha Stewart.  Weighs ounces and grams.  But the only question I have is how do you know its the right weight.  I had 5 pound bags of flour and each weighed differently.  Thanks for your help I really appreciated the time you took to answer. Busy Lizzy

dwcoleman's picture
dwcoleman

They should weigh the same, it sounds like a packaging/weighing problem with the manufacturer, I wouldn't worry about that.

454g = 1lb

~28g = 1oz

Use the numbers above when converting recipes, they are correct.  I convert all recipes into grams because I find them more accurate.

They can't legally sell a 5lb bag of flour that weights 4.9lbs.  You could write the company advising them of your trouble, they may send you some coupons for free product!

flournwater's picture
flournwater

Whether or not the scale is entirely accurate is less important than the linearity of its error over the range of the scale.  If the scale has an error or  X% over its entire range, the ratio of the error from one ingredient weight to the other won't make any difference in the final formula.

At any rate, a scale that isn't laboratory certified may have some degree of error included in its outputs but it's still better than working with bread making ingredients using volume.

LindyD's picture
LindyD

It could be that the scale is inaccurate and needs calibration.  That was the case with a MyWeigh i5000 I recently purchased.  It was off by 10 grams.

Lizzy, if you can round up 10 old pennies, stack them on your scale.  They should weigh an ounce.

Nickisafoodie's picture
Nickisafoodie

1) When weighing salt, be aware that course Kosher salt weights about half as much as table salt as the latter has smaller crystals, and thus is denser for any given volume measurement like TBS.  Most bakers prefer the courser Kosher sea salt.  Thus, a scale is mandatory.

2) I find you need two scales- one for very light measures and one for higher needs.  There was a recent article posted on Wild Yeast's blog: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/?s=scales .  My first scale was a small digital that was rated up to four pounds and is great when measureing 9 grams of salt or 6 grams of yeast, or one loaf of bread.  However when I started making 5 loaves at a time with 10 pounds of dough, I had to get another scale that went up to 12 lbs.  Measuring 6-12 grams of yeast/salt on the larger scale is not as accurate as the smaller scale.  One cost $30 and the other $40.  Well worth having two in my book.

PS, there are also digital scales on the web (DigiScale) that weigh up to 100 grams for $20; they come with calibration weights and other models from small to large.   I sometimes have to measure items that weigh 15 grains (7000 grains to a pound) vs grams (454 grams per pound).  These have been spot on having tested the same 15 grains on a quad beam balance scale with identical results - worthwhile investment if it fits your needs.

flournwater's picture
flournwater

Sorry Nick, a gram of salt is a gram of salt, regardless of how the salt is processed.  The volumetric meausre of salt will vary because it density is not consistent from one variety to another but one of the reasons to weigh salt is to eliminate those inconsistencies.

 

Nickisafoodie's picture
Nickisafoodie

Flournwater, pls read my post again and you will see we are saying the same thing.  For a given volume measurement (say tbs) table salt will weigh twice as much as flaked kosher salt -due to greater density of table salt driven by the smaller salt crystal size and thus more fit into a given space or volume.  And the broader point being that a smaller scale is more accurate than a larger scale when dealing in these finer measures that are 1-2% of the flour weight of the recipe.  Thus the recommendation not only to weigh, but to have a smaller scale for these rather nominal amounts and a larger one for the heavier dough weights.  Thanks for checking in, I enjoyed your "Looks good to Me" post above and the broader endorsement for weighing ingredients...

Thanks...

flournwater's picture
flournwater

OK, Nick, after re-reading the post I think I understand better what you were offering and it appears we are both on the same page.  I guess it's the frustrated mad scientist in me that's always watching to clarify stuff like that.  ;>}

Thanks for being a good sport about my faux pas.