The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Spreadsheet Template

golgi70's picture
golgi70

Spreadsheet Template

So I've sought this here before and found some solid info but never really found what I needed.  I am in the market for a template for manipulating my formulas.  If anyone has a blank template they'd like to share that would be most excellent.  I've looked for purchasable templates and can't find any.  Breadstorm looks about perfect but its for MAC only and I am a PC user so....  I'd like to have rows for total ingredients, preferement 1, preferement 2 (these can simply be named per recipe and used or not used pending the forumla) I've found some pretty close on google docs but they don't have it set up to tally your levain.  It would be cool to have a section that manipulates the levain build as well.  Many bakeries use this system and I'm starting to assume most build their own spreadsheets.  I have little experience with building spreadsheets so I reach out to those more advanced that might point me in the direction to a purchasable and/or existing template that I can then use to fill in.  

Hope this request makes sense

Cheers and Thanks 

 

Josh

MisterTT's picture
MisterTT

mine. It has a prefermented flour % rather than % levain, which I believe makes more sense. The levain is pictured as built over 3 builds from a minute amount of 100% hydration starter. You can adjust levain hydration and dough hydration individually. It would not be too difficult to incorporate another preferment/soaker if the spreadsheet is useful to you in principle.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ajcq2xngz6tsdFNwdXhiRVlYZlMxaU9Qb0JxTFphS2c&usp=drive_web#gid=0

All that being said, it really is the best thing to just make a blank spreadsheet for yourself. The calculations involved are trivial.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

Yes but I don't even know where to begin with building a nice "template" and since they already exist I'm trying to skip that step at least for now.  Then when time is available I can tinker with it myself.  Thanks for sharing yours.  It looks like it will be helpful.  I'd like to have one set with a soaker section, second and even third pre ferments.  I'll play with this though.

 

Many thanks

Josh

MisterTT's picture
MisterTT

play around with it myself :) The way I understand, one thing that you wish to have is more customization over the levain build. In the following spreadsheet there are two options to build levain: three stage and two stage. You can enter desired hydrations for levain and seed starter. There is also functionality to change how large each build is.

I've also added a soaker, to which you can enter the percentage of each ingredient and more space for ingredients in the total ingredients table. Now when building a formula the steps you'd take would be:

1. Fill up the parameters on top of the spreadsheet.
2. Fill up the "total ingredients" table. You only have to change the percentages, the rest will recalculate itself.
3. Fill up the soaker table. Again, change only the percentages. Note that the water in the soaker has to be entered irrespective of dough hydration. I think it makes since the soaker soaks up the water after all. Though in fairness for things like cracked wheat, I just usually soak in lots of water and drain before using.
4. Tinker the levain build to your preferences. It doesn't matter which one you will use, because the mass of levain will remain the same.
5. The final mix table fills itself up, no changes needed there.

Here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14qLpk4moTREDEjYmS9dOSN59-X0LDkrhioViGXfM0m0/edit#gid=1661976971

If you'd like another preferment added with flour taken from another cell, I might as well do that too, since I started anyway. Yeast preferments are also possible.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

You've added some great stuff.  I'm a bit confused by the third build.  Levain Build 1 and 2 have it 1:2  Seed:Flour but at the final build it changes to include the 2nd build making it more 1:1.  Any way to build in the levain a function to choose seed %?  So it would be based against the flour of the levain. To get real crazy it could be set for each build.  So if I wanted the first build to be 1:5 and then the final builds 1:2 I could set that?  

Thanks so much this is great stuff 

Josh

                

MisterTT's picture
MisterTT

the functions you're talking about. Maybe the layout isn't very intuitive, so I'll explain a little bit. "Prefermented flour in 1st levain build" determines how much seed starter you use:

What that cell value means is this: take all of the flour in 1st build of the levain. The part of that flour that comes from seed culture is determined by the percentage in the cell outlined above. So for example if I've got 100 grams of flour in the first build of the levain and I set prefermented flour % in 1st levain build equal to 25% I'm going to get 25 grams of flour in the seed culture and added 75 grams of flour. Now the hydrations are computed according to the seed and levain hydrations you specify.

Now to answer you second question, this functionality is also available, how to change this is outlined here:

Those percentages outlined are editable, but it only makes sense to edit the first two so I kept only that. What they mean is how much of the whole levain amount (here pictured as 814 grams) are you going to have at the end of each build. So for example at the end of the first build you'll have 10% (81 grams), at the end of the second you'll have 40% (326 grams) and always at the end of the last one you'll have the whole levain.

Tinkering you can get the same amount of levain in a different way:

Not the proportions are set to 20 and 40% for the first two builds respectively.

There is one functionality that is not available and would be overkill: to have each build at different hydration. Sure, some people like to use this (Detmolder comes to mind), but I'm lukewarm about it. It could be done, but I don't see the point.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

I'll tinker with this and I think I'll get what I was lookin for. 

Thanks Again

Josh

ericreed's picture
ericreed

I based my template off the Bread Baker's Guild of America guidelines. It's still a little rough, but here is an example of Hamelman's Sourdough Baguettes adapted to my template. I would normally delete the unnecessary preferment sections once I'd finished entering everything, but I left them in here.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

This should suit all my needs.  Thanks so much for sharing

 

Josh

golgi70's picture
golgi70

to change or add would be to break flour into each type all adding to be the "100%" Any idea how to implement this?

 

Josh

ericreed's picture
ericreed

Are you wanting to calculate the formula based on the amount of flour or the final weight of the dough? I have it set up for the latter on this sheet. For that, if you had for example, white flour at 60% and whole flour at 40%, the formula for each would be Total Dough Weight divided by the sum of the total formula percentages multiplied by the flour percentage.

So, in this example, 700 g total weight divided by 1.723 (172.3%) = 406 grams total flour. 406 * 60% = 244 grams white flour, and 406 * 40% is 162 whole wheat flour.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

I want to be able to manipulate the formula via ingredients and/or get weights and measures via dough weight.  It looks just about perfect but I'd like to segregate a section for flours all of which will make up the 100%.  So to have maybe 4 or 5 slots correlating by percentage to combine for the 100%.  Does this make sense?

 

Josh

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

that I don't use because it is too complex .  if you want to see it send me your Emaail and I will attahch it .  It does SD YW combinations multiple flours, every add in known to man poolish etc.

ericreed's picture
ericreed

Well, that's why I said mine was a little rough. When you change up the ingredients you have to re-enter the calculations. But once it's all in, it's easy enough to change amounts. If I want to base it on total flour weight instead of dough weight, I put in an extra field and calculate everything else from that. You could also change the calculation formulas to all be TDW/SUM(Baker's %) * ingredient %.

If you want to send me a bread formula you use, I can set up a sheet tomorrow with it to show you what I mean.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

I am certainly not trying to complain.  This is a wonderful spreadsheet.  It's just shy of one function I'd like to have incorporated.  I am so very appreciative of your sharing and offering your time.  I can't thank you enough.  I don't know the first thing hence this post.  And you and others have shared.   

Many thanks

Ok so lets do Pane Maggiore

Pre Fermented Flour (16%) split between a whole wheat levain @ 100% hydration and a white levain @ 100% hydration

Flour:  60% White (11.5% protein) 23% Whole Wheat 17% Whole Rye

Salt 2.16%

H20: 87%

I've almost figured it out with the exception of creating multiple flours within the 100% context.  

Cheers

Josh

CeciC's picture
CeciC

Hi Josh,

Below is the one i built, which you will need to type in the data in terms of weight at the very end, it will then calculate the % for you (in the middle). 

You can also adjust the final weight at the beginning once you have all the data entered.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1O3HdO263yDZFF2S2pzdVJuejA/edit?usp=sharing

Hope this helps

Cecilia 

ericreed's picture
ericreed

Ok, on Sheet 2 of that google doc, I put in the formula for Pan Maggiore. I didn't know how you build your levain, so I kept it at a 20% seed inoculation. My usual method is that the seed is subtracted from the levain added to the dough and used to perpetuate the culture. And I arbitrarily chose an example of two 1.5 pound (~680 gram) loaves.

As far as figuring out multiple flours, I think the important thing is to know that Total Flour = Total Dough Weight (cell D2) / Total Baker's % (cell C26). Once you have that number, everything else should be simple to calculate.

I used that Total Flour equation to calculate the other weights, but you could stick it in the corner as well, which I also did here in cell B4, and reference that cell for the calculations instead. Then if you wanted to change the formula based on total flour instead of total dough weight, you could just change that number, and switch the TDW equation to be a simple sum.

Also, you may notice I use the ROUND function a lot. I prefer it, but it makes it look more complicated if you're trying to parse the formula, so you could not use it and format the cells to cut off how many decimal points are displayed instead. (Also, you'll note the total flour in the corner is 719, but only 718 when you add the numbers from rounding errors.)

golgi70's picture
golgi70

I noticed that TF=TDW/TB% seemed to be the heart of the "tricky math".  Sticking it in the corner for use is clever too.  I like the round function because I want to see the decimal places in the formulas.  

Thanks again for all the help

Josh

golgi70's picture
golgi70

But when I try to copy to my drive its running into an error.  Is it because its multiple pages?

Josh

ericreed's picture
ericreed

You're having trouble downloading my spreadsheet? What's the error message?

Let's see if this works, I haven't shared from Dropbox before, but try this link.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

And better yet I have it on my computer so I can save to disk.  

As I fiddle I'm noticing if I change the seed percentage no adjustments are being made outside of the levain itself.  I suppose all this needs is a way to adjust seed hydration and for the seed to be accounted for in the total formula.  

This is really what I was looking for. So many to choose from.  The BBGA one is really cool but a bit complicated.  This is a bit of plug n play easy but all the info needed.  

Thanks again.  I'll see if I can muster up the cell to do what I am thinking of but don't cross your fingers

Josh

ericreed's picture
ericreed

I follow Hamelman's example and subtract the seed culture amount from the levain for the final dough. That amount would then be what I feed to perpetuate the starter. Which is why I don't have it linked to anything.

You can find the flour out for any given hydration of your culture similar to the way you find the Total Flour for the formula. Take the amount of seed culture divided by 100% + hydration %. So if I had 20 grams of starter at 60% hydration, 20 / (1 + 0.60) = 12.5 grams flour and therefore 7.5 grams water. I don't know if that helps you figure out how to incorporate those amounts.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

Well I'm happy I tried again.  Thanks to all for the sharing and help.  I'll be fiddling with all of these.

Josh

David Esq.'s picture
David Esq.

As an exercise I created a spreadsheet for Diagram 3, Part II "Rustic Sourdough with Three Flours, a Cracked Wheat Soaker and a Yeasted Preferment.

I have no idea if it will be of any use to anybody, but here is the google doc link if you are interested.

Diagram 3

The only difference is that I used grams instead of kg, though that is easily changed if people find that annoying.

I wanted to create a second tab that would calculate  the bakers% based on inputted  weights, and which would yield the same bakers% as in the the original formula (using their calculated weights) but for some reason that alluded me (no doubt due to rounding) I was  unable to do this. The yeast kept giving me .003 instead of.002 no matter what I did.

BobS's picture
BobS

Hi David,

This is a really nice spreadsheet. Looking at both the BBGA article I wondered how one would handle soakers properly in a spreadsheet. In your implementation of the spreadsheet, could you explain the steps I would take to change the soaker hydration to, say, 120%  if I thought that were required to make the soaker hydration-neutral?

Thanks

Bob

lew_c's picture
lew_c

I'm working on an automated bread bakers notebook primarily for myself but if there was interest I would release it as open source (free) software. From what you describe it would do what you are looking for and in a user friendly way. It also maintains nutrition info as well including gluten, and potassium which I threw in because a friend is on dialysis. But it likely wont be ready for release until late summer as we are insanely busy till near the end of June. If any interest is shown I would post details here (as time allows) for feed back and suggestions. 

Interest?

 

lew

golgi70's picture
golgi70

I'd love to see what you come up with and "plug n play" is right up my alley.  

Thanks for offering and I look forward to seeing it

Josh

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

Josh,

I am hopelessly addicted to my essentially verbatim adaptation of BBGA's format.  First thing I do when I find a formula I want to try is shoehorn it into my BBGA template.  I did that with a dozen or more of Hammelman's formulae, plus many of Robertson's and Forkish's (not to mention Dave Snyder's, Phil Agnew's and Khalid's!).  The few blogposts I've made here contain links to google-ized versions of my excel BBGA sheets.  Easy to add or hide column groups for more or fewer preferments, or have it linked to separate mini-tables for milling combos or levains.  A simple and sensible format, IF you're comfortable with Excel.  As much as I admire Jackie Coloussi's efforts and product (I even signed on as a Breadstorm beta-tester), I just haven't felt the need for it, attached as I am to BBGA's.

Tom

golgi70's picture
golgi70

This is a very nice spreadsheet.  But I am learning that I need to take a crash coarse in spreadsheets so it all makes a bit more sense to me.  I've learned a bunch actually just looking over everyone's shared sheets.  But more to learn for sure.  How do I save a google docs spreadsheet to my hard drive?  google drive is great but I also would want the hard copy filed on my computer just in case.  

I can't even try breadstorm unless I buy a new computer.  That's not gonna happen any time soon.  

Cheers and Thanks for sharing

Josh

David Esq.'s picture
David Esq.

I think you can only access a google doc, when you are on-line. If google goes down or stops supporting google docs, you may be stuck.

You can download it into various formats by clicking file/download, so if you have excel, it may work there.  But then again, it may not.

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

Show me how you get such perfect crumbs every time and I'll show you EVERYTHING I know :-)

When you're looking at a spreadsheet in Google Drive, go to the File menu (in Drive, in the browser, not in your operating system) and down to "Download as".  First option should be "Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).   On my Mac, I'm offered the option of opening right away or saving it.  I just tested it with my Spent Fuel Boule and it came down just fine.

Tom

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

I only use Google Drive to share the spreadsheets on TFL.  I'm not worried about Google somehow abandoning Drive or anything, it's just that I don't like to rely on an internet connection for anything I don't have to (we have a flaky rural cell modem connection).  I have a few .xlsx files with dozens of tabs across the bottom, these being incremental tweaks and variations on bakes.  All local to my laptop (and my external backup drive).

Tom

David Esq.'s picture
David Esq.

Whether it works in Excel or not depends on whether you use too many specialized functions, etc.  If your document is not highly formatted with code it should work fine in excel. But if you have drop down menus, named ranges, it may not work.

golgi70's picture
golgi70

But if you have a formula that you'd like me to look at I'd be glad to help on that front.  

I'll see what happens when i try to save to hard disk.  For the same reason you mention below is why I'd like to have it saved to my hard drive.  Access without the internet and for peace of mind say google blows up or something.  

Josh