I am in the process of making a spreadsheet that will recalculate ingredient weights after changing the final dough weight. So if a recipe calls for 3 pounds of dough and I want to make 4.8 pounds the sheet will give me the grams of each ingredient according to the total weight and the percentage. I've accomplished this for all recipes with the exception of those with complications such as soakers. At least as Hamelman list them.
My problem comes in when attempting to calculate the soaker according to Hamelman's Five-Grain Levain recipe. I'm looking at pages 182 and 183 in his book entitled "Bread". The soaker gets confusing for me.
If you have time to take a look I'd appreciate any help.
Dan
But percentage wise, whatever you do to the other ingredients do to the soaker.
Once you calculated the percentage change of flour then workout the percentage change of dry ingredients within the soaker and keep the hydration percentage the same.
Well first of all I see that he's given the final dough for the home baker as 4lb, 11.1oz. Isn't that almost exactly what you want?
It's the 3rd column. If you follow the recipe using the third column in each table then you have everything already calculated.
Levain Build : Total 1 lb, 3.6 oz
Bread Flour : 8 oz
Water : 10 oz
Mature Liquid Culture (Starter) : 1.6 oz
Soaker : 1 lb, 8 oz
Cracked Rye : 2.9 oz
Flaxseeds : 2.9 oz
Sunflower Seeds : 2.5 oz
Oats : 2.5 oz
Water, Boiling : 13 oz
Salt : 0.2 oz
Final Dough : 4 lb, 11.1 oz
Bread Flour : 1 lb
Whole-Wheat Flour : 8 oz
Water : 8.4 oz
Salt : 0.6 oz
Yeast : 0.1 oz, instant dry
Soaker : 1 lb, 2 oz
Liquid Levain : 1 lb, 2 oz
As always Lechem, I really appreciate your willing to help and the time that you volunteer to do so. I was using a hypothetical when I wrote 3 lb. increased to 4.8 lb.
For the spreadsheet for the recipe I'm working as my first project the total dough weight is 4 lb. 11.3oz. as instructed in Hamelman's book. And I want to increase that to 5.5 lb.
So, this is what I've done. But it's not exactly what I looking for. I converted both the initial and desired weight in pounds to grams. So the original recipe totals to 2129 grams and the desired total is 2503 grams. That is an increase of 15%.
I converted the soaker ingredients from ounces to grams and increase each by 15%.
It is not as graceful as I'd like it to be, but at this time I can't think of a better way to make the conversion. I was hoping to plug in numbers into an Excel spreadsheet have it auto-calculate. I not much at math.
Dan
Well in that case I agree with what you've done but remember that Hamelman has taken into account the decrease in weight of the soaker in the final dough and he doesn't use all the Levain. He builds extra and keeps some back. So here's what I would do... The way how I calculate a new recipe with the desired weight is:
New weight / old weight. Then multiply each ingredient by that answer.
Levain Build : Total 1 lb, 3.6 oz
Bread Flour : 8 oz
Water : 10 oz
Mature Liquid Culture (Starter) : 1.6 oz
Soaker : 1 lb, 8 oz
Cracked Rye : 2.9 oz
Flaxseeds : 2.9 oz
Sunflower Seeds : 2.5 oz
Oats : 2.5 oz
Water, Boiling : 13 oz
Salt : 0.2 oz
Final Dough : 4 lb, 11.1 oz
Bread Flour : 1 lb
Whole-Wheat Flour : 8 oz
Water : 8.4 oz
Salt : 0.6 oz
Yeast : 0.1 oz, instant dry
Soaker : 1 lb, 2 oz
Liquid Levain : 1 lb, 2 oz
He actually builds 2174g but final dough is 2129g = 2.113% decrease
You want to end up with 2503g so you need to build 2559g to allow for the decrease in the soaker (but he adds it all in) and the little extra he builds in the Levain only to not use all of it.
So here we go... 2559g / 2174g = 1.178
Now multiply each ingredient by 1.178...
Levain Build : Total 1 lb, 3.6 oz
Bread Flour : 8 oz x 1.178
Water : 10 oz x 1.178
Mature Liquid Culture (Starter) : 1.6 oz x 1.178
Soaker : 1 lb, 8 oz
Cracked Rye : 2.9 oz x 1.178
Flaxseeds : 2.9 oz x 1.178
Sunflower Seeds : 2.5 oz x 1.178
Oats : 2.5 oz x 1.178
Water, Boiling : 13 oz x 1.178
Salt : 0.2 oz x 1.178
Final Dough : 4 lb, 11.1 oz
Bread Flour : 1 lb X 1.178
Whole-Wheat Flour : 8 oz x 1.178
Water : 8.4 oz x 1.178
Salt : 0.6 oz x 1.178
Yeast : 0.1 oz, instant dry x 1.178
Soaker : 1 lb, 2 oz
Liquid Levain : 1 lb, 2 oz
Now when it comes to the final dough just add in all the soaker. For the Levain work out how much he builds and the % he uses. Then use the same percentage from your build.
Lechem, I taken this long to reply because I've struggled with the math. Since a young boy, I've always operated on common sense. And formulas that I can't understand challenges me. I don't understand some of your instructions, but I've common sensed them and I know they are correct. Thanks for the help. I have completed the equations.
I have an inquiring mind and I'd like to learn what is taking place in the instruction below.
"He actually builds 2174g but final dough is 2129g = 2.113% decrease" I get the missing 45 grams that is held out for the culture. I've tried, but I can't figure out how you arrived at 2.113% decrease
"You want to end up with 2503g so you need to build 2559g to allow for the decrease in the soaker (but he adds it all in) and the little extra he builds in the Levain only to not use all of it." So if I subtract 45 from 2559 I get 2514. What am I missing?
"So here we go... 2559g / 2174g = 1.178 Now multiply each ingredient by 1.178..." I know this works, but I don't understand it.
As you can see. I'm willing to admit my ignorance. I was always the one in class to raise my hand when the teacher ask, "does everyone understand this" if I didn't completely comprehend what was said? Of course many of the other students benefited when the teacher explained the subject in more detail.
Dan
inquiring minds want to know...
So it doesn't come naturally to be either. But I've learned a few simple rules and stick to them.
To workout a percentage increase I had to work backwards. It's easier to do an increase then a decrease so I worked out the weight of the final dough first to get 2129g (please check up on this as lbs and ounces are foreign to me and I had to google it) but all the ingredients from the levain build, soaker and rest of the ingredients add up to 2174g. So how to work out a percentage increase...
2174 / 2129 = 1.02113
Miss out the 1 before the decimal point as that isn't the increase. that's the 2129! then move the decimal point over two places to the right to get the percentage. So you times by 100 and you get 2.113
This formula works for percentage increase. Decrease is more complicated (imo) but since he has given both within his formula we can work up.
Now you want to end up with 2503g but you have to build an extra 2.113%. So I just added 2.113% to 2503g and got 2556g (oops! just tried it on my calculator and got a difference of 3g which is very minor! so don't worry about it. As long as you treat every ingredient the same then the formula has not changed).
Now to workout the maths for your dough. His total dough is 2174g (not taking into consideration the less starter he uses and the natural decrease in the soaker). The toal dough you want is 2556g. So the formula is:
New weight / Old weight. Then multiply each ingredient by that answer.
2556 / 2174 = 1.176 (very minor difference as you can see - mere grams)
Then you multiply each ingredient by that weight. But don't re-do the soaker and levain in the final formula. Just the added ingredients.
He then proceeds to add all the soaker in the final dough. It is less, as you can see, but he does say add all of it and I'm assuming its less because of a natural decrease in weight for some reason. Or perhaps its a type. But clearly all is added. Now I do know that he builds extra levain and keeps some back so just work out what percentage he keeps back and do the same to yours.
It is very complicated because of the way he builds the dough with a few different charts taking into consideration decreases in weight whether keeping some back or otherwise. That si why I did a few steps here. But if you have a very simple formula like...
500g bread flour
350g water
10g salt
50g starter (at 100% hydration)
Total = 910g
And you wish to build a 815g dough then it's very simple.
815 / 910 = 0.8956
Then multiply each ingredients by 0.8956
500g bread flour x 0.8956 = 447.8g
350g water x 0.8956 = 313.46
10g salt x 0.8956 = 8.956
50g starter (at 100% hydration) x 0.8956 = 44.78g
Total = 814.996g
And of course you don't need to be this exact so just round up or down to the nearest whole number.
Thanks for the math lesson. I'm starting to get the hang of it.