The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

My scale has the jitters

foodforthought's picture
foodforthought

My scale has the jitters

Greetings. I'm new here and just made a batch of ficelles using Anis Boubasa baguette dough recipe. Good grief, were they ever good. They disappeared before I even thought to pull out a camera. ...next time.

Anyway, as I was measuring the ingredients, I couldn't help but notice that my Ozeri scale was drifting up and down to the tune of 20-30 grams around my target weight. I have mostly used the scale for weighing coffee beans that I roast, so hadn't really noticed how large the bounces are since I mostly measure 12 and 16 ounce batches. Grams being much smaller made the variations much more noticeable... And given this crew's apparent exacting adherence to careful measurement, I'm thinking the possibility of a 40-60 gram variance might make consistency (or even success) a problem, AB's ficelles notwithstanding.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Does everyone have this problem? Ideas for correcting it are welcome because I am frankly flummoxed. Is it just time to get another scale?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts,

Phil

trailrunner's picture
trailrunner

whenever my scale starts to float erratically I change the battery and it’s perfect till next time 

love's picture
love

idk but if you gotta get a new one, the oxo good grips one is really good, we just got one and I recommend it

suave's picture
suave

There's might be some junk in the mechanism - try to blow some air under the plate and see if it helps.

Portus's picture
Portus

My original electronic scale similarly misbehaved.  It was only after I had purchased a replacement that I realised some dough the size of an atom had got trapped between one corner sensor foot and its protective rubber "sock".  A brief blow as one would extinguish a candle and, bingo, I now have two functioning electronic scales!

bikeprof's picture
bikeprof

+1 on battery

I have also had drafts from heating/cooling ducts wreak havoc with measurements

I have a scale that does weird things like that in its "special" auto tare mode

foodforthought's picture
foodforthought

Thanks, all. Took the scale back cover off. Visibly fairly clean and free of even small amounts of debris. Went ahead and blew out any dust that might be hiding. Had already changed batteries. No bueno. :-| Expecting another scale to arrive today. Water under the bridge. Now to make more of those ficelles fantastique...