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Baker's Math (2009)

thefreshloaf.com

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Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#111

Post by fknorangesite »

eps wrote: post #69
mcaravey wrote: post #50

Commercial baker here. One place where this kind of math gets really weird is when the recipe uses multiple kinds of flours. We make a loaf that uses three kinds of flour, so this means a recipe will have flour percentages that are less than 100%, but that sum to 100% so the hydration percentage works. For example, the recipe might say: Bread Flour 80%, Whole Wheat Flour 15%, and Rye Flour 5%. Personally I prefer jus…

> the Modernist Bread set. It’s pricey... $625 is not "pricey", it's ridiculuously expensive.

For five books? Have you shopped for textbooks recently (in the last 30 years)?

$625 is a goddamned bargain.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#112

Post by fknorangesite »

nsb1 wrote: post #29
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You get used to it. You do. The single most important factor is "what does the dough feel like - how stiff and hard, or how loose and wet?" The water % captures this in 1 number. e.g. A 60% hydration pizza dough is much stiffer than a 80% hydration focaccia dough. Just by seeing that one number, I get an idea of how the dough is going to be to work with.

Yeah, but what you're saying is essentially "I don't need the recipe anymore - I can do this by feel", which is awesome, but who then is the recipe for except people who are trying to learn? Maybe throw us a bone :)

> Maybe throw us a bone :)

I am often amused in forums like this one, where in one moment we will decry those who who do not learn their tech by fiddling with it, for fear of breaking it - and then in the next breath be afraid of putting a touch too much water in our flour.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#113

Post by esperent »

mcaravey wrote: post #64
sophacles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat! Im curious - were you in tech before becoming a baker at all, or did you pick up the programming skills to help your baking career? I ask because I'm always interested in hearing how non-programmers end up programming. I've long held the opinion that we (tech that is) should try to make things more programmable by users (e.g. game scripting, excel, the "citizen developer" world of sharepoint), etc and like to h…

Oh, I do software by trade. The bakery is because it started as a family business that I helped get off the ground. My background is in B2B payments and construction software. Even though the bakery doesn’t make as much money as software, there’s a whole other world of experience to be gained by running a blue collar business that runs 20 hours a day, 7 days a week. Very very different that a software shop. But to yo…

I'm in a basically identical situation to you, except it's my partner's cafe-bakery and I'm probably a few years behind you.

I've chosen to use Odoo rather than roll my own. It's highly customizable and open source. I'm self hosting it and I've written a couple of small plugins so far. I'm finding it pretty hackable. It's built from comfortably boring tech (Python + PostgreSQL backend, Bootstrap + JS frontend). Not perfect by any means (for example there's an annoying split between the paid and free versions, although there are plugins to extend the free version to do nearly everything the paid one can, at least for my needs), but from what I can see it's way ahead of most other similar offerings and there's a big community of developers behind it and tutorials for nearly everything.

It's a decent ERP for a restaurant. I will need to build some bakery specific stuff on top but it's already reducing our workload a lot. Previously my partner was doing the low tech excel sheets and paper receipts method and we're gonna do a slow transition to Odoo over the next 6 months or so.

Besides that, we are trialling Rocket.Chat for Slack style messaging and Outline wiki (Notion clone minus database views) for knowledge management, both free and self hosted.

Odoo is somewhat technical to learn, unavoidably (as with any ERP software). But it's been a good test of the other two to see whether non-technical baking staff can use them. Some of them are very non-technical, internet = Facebook level.

Besides a few teething problems, so far so good. It's a learning experience for me, for sure. I'm staying out of the kitchen mostly but I am studying the coffee side of the business which is lovely change of pace from coding.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#114

Post by andreasscherman »

dxdm wrote: post #82
andreasscherman wrote: post #37

Slightly related and maybe useful to someone: I built a "declarative" (sourdough) calculator which simplifies these calculations, or at least reverses the question so you just fill in what properties of the loaf you want. Link: https://breadfriend.com .

In the first sentence on the start page, there's an unnecessary apostrophe in the word "recipes". It's a plural form, not a possessive. Not everyone will agree or care, but this kind of thing can have an unfortunate effect when people come to the page for the first time and form an opinion about it.

Thanks, appreciate it. Fixed!

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#115

Post by nayuki »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #55

I’m surprised how something so basic as learning that baking recipes are ratios of mass makes me feel more comfortable and inclined to try baking than anything ever has before. It’s such a simple concept, and much more approachable to me than I’d expected before I clicked the link.

> learning that baking recipes are ratios of mass makes me feel more comfortable [...] It’s such a simple concept

Yes. Almost all recipes get the presentation wrong by using a mix of units and fractions, e.g.:

    1 cup flour, sifted
    2/3 cup water
    1 tsp salt
    0.5 g yeast
    1 large egg

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#116

Post by ycombinete »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #20
sva_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just use 80% hydration, it makes things easier and tastier.

A bit messy though.

For me, anything over 65% usually requires stretch and fold technique, as opposed to a knead. It's not messy at all when done that way.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#117

Post by chb »

eps wrote: post #70
mcaravey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it was an investment for sure. But it has allowed us to save a ton of time every day (e.g. save 30 minute on the autolyse), make tweaks to our recipes to match our processes, change our starters (use stiff levain instead of poolish for certain breads), and a bunch of other details. Not needed for the lay-person. For sourdough I’d opt for the Tartine books.

Autolyse probably is not the best example. I have several bread-making books and I don't think a single one advocates for autolyse. Not Tartine, not Forkish's, not Reinhart's. Lots of youtubers and bloggers love it though, no idea why.

Forkish explicitly calls for an autolyze period in most of the bread recipes he presents in “Flour Water Salt Yeast.”
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