I re-upped the calculator, I had to redo some mistakes I had made. If your are interested download from HERE
If your having problems downloading from the link above send me email to :
[email protected] and I will forward it to you. It just a simple basic calc. & its free.
You can edit anything in yellow
GT
Version 2 of your calculator is much more user friendly! Thank you. It looks like the link isn’t there any more, but I downloaded it before it left.
I think this could be a great improvement on what I do now to scale a formula up or down, depending on my needs, i.e., throw it into an Excel template I made and, with my limited Excel skills, make a new “grams” column based on the original formula column, multiplying it by .75 or 1.25 or whatever. While I have a rough idea of the bakers percentages, I don’t use them, although now I see I could with your calculator.
In trying to figure out how I’d use it (instead of my template), I guess when I come across a new recipe I want to try, I’d take your calculator, do a “save as” with the name of the bread, and then enter the amount of flour and other amounts I intend to use. From that, I’d get the bakers percentages and could then play with those in future bakes if necessary. Or, if the recipe gives bakes percentages, enter those first.
Is that how you envision using it? Or, perhaps I should ask, how would YOU use it?
Another question is about the “Weight of each loaf”. I have actually never weighed any of my loaves. Is this intended for someone who wants to start by knowing they want to bake for example a 750g loaf? It’s not clear to me how it’s used because nothing seems to change when I use that cell. I think I’m missing something!
At one point I thought I saw some tips on how to use the calculator, but they were partially hidden by the “Notes” box. Tips would be helpful.
Thanks for sharing this and I hope to learn more about how to use it from you and others.
Thank you - I have since re did the calc once again I made a mistake in the %,s. I think I protected the sheets on the one you have to unprotect them just click unprotect and it will ask for a password just ignore and hit enter. Also if you want the latest and last version i have send me an email to [email protected] and I will send it to you. About the wight of the loaves that is not for the finished product (baked) I should change it to read dough. I have weighed my dough before I mixed my ingredients and I am always off a little. I think it comes from dough sticking to everything and by the time you put it in the pan etc your already in the minus.
But it works for me it is just a little mickey mouse calculator that may help people like me who are newbies, or at least steer them in the right direction
I added the link here It is the latest and uptodate the password for the sheets if you need it is “bread” no quotes.
Also if you would like to see more options in the drop down list say for yeast, water…let me know and I will add more
I did download the new one. I see the three notes at the bottom in Dropbox, but when I download it and it’s in Excel, they’re gone!
I will raise my pet peeve for bakers percentages (and acknowledge that people often do use the methodology you have adopted).
You ignore the hydration level and the amount of the starter in your calculation. So the 60% bakers percentage is simply the ratio of water:flour (excluding starter). If you include the starter (assuming a 100% hydration starter) in the calculation, the percentage is approximately 64%. I probably won’t notice a huge difference in 60% vs. 64% hydration and both would be manageable, but if it is underestimating hydration of 70%, 75% or 80% dough, it would be a very noticeable change from my intended hydration level.
The same is true for the percentage of salt above. 5g of salt above is 1.84% of flour above (excluding starter) and only 1.67% of flour including starter. While we are only talking about a fraction of a gram, 2% of your total flour including starter (299g) is 5.98g. By recommending 5g, you are essentially 1g (or 20% short). Using 20% too little salt would be noticeable.
Use less starter, and the variations are less. use more starter and the variations becomes greater.
