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Converting bread recipes

post #1 of 11
9/11/06 at 12:54pm
Thread Starter 
Hello,
I am planning to upgrade my home baking to a larger commercial operation. Is there a formula to convert basic bread batches into commercial ones (one loaf into 100 loaves)? Do I have to keep the same proportions between the basic ingredients; flour, yeast, water and salt?
I will appreciate any help and many thanks in advance.
Benjamin:chef:
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post #2 of 11
9/12/06 at 12:13am

Bakers' Percentages

You don't really scale in regard to quantity of loaves this way, but you can use bakers' percentages. That is, your quantity of flour is 100% and all other ingredient quantities are expressed as percentages relative to the quantity of flour.

For example, if your recipe calls for 10 oz of flour, 5 oz of water, and 1 oz of yeast the recipe in b.p. would be
flour 100%
water 50%
yeast 10%
now you can scale up or down as you wish.

So if you've got a 50# bag of flour (and you want to use all of it) you know you need 25# of water and 5# of yeast.

Keep in mind, too, that sometimes things just don't work in different quantites. This is true more often when you're making a smaller recipe, but do be aware that you may need to do some tweaking along the way.

Good Luck!
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post #3 of 11
9/12/06 at 3:07am
Do yourself a big favor. Move to metric.

All calculations would be so much easier.

For example. Let's say your recipe gives you 10 loaves each 40 grams. You want to make a 150 loaves. All you have to do is multiply your amounts by 15. So 950gr flour would be 14250gr or 14.25 kilos.
If you were doing it with ounces it would have been much more complicated. How much is 15 oz times 12.5?
So move all your recipes to metric. Give up on cup measurments. So you're recipe would only include grams, kilos and liters. All can be easily scaled up or down with ease.

This only works as long as your loaves stay the same size and all other variables remain. For bigger/smaller loaves you might need different ratios of time and temps.
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post #4 of 11
9/12/06 at 9:19pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you both for the help. Keeping the same ingredient proportions seems the right way to go.
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post #5 of 11
9/12/06 at 10:13pm
Sharhar, where have you been all my life?

For the last few years I've blasted on about metric and using scales, much to the wrath of many N. American home AND professional cooks and bakers. I have been persistant and levelheaded, defending my postion several times on this site and others like it. I've written pleading letters to most of the American cooking mags, begging them to at least put the ingredients with cup measurements and weight. I purposely didn't mention metric, you can't have your cake and eat it too, but I will never go back to imperial measurements.

And now this, the angels are playing violins in my ears, and from an American too, no less!
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post #6 of 11
9/13/06 at 11:20am
Right on borther metric.
After we get every body in N. America(and Englend) using metric weights and volumes we move on to metric time(100 secs a minute, 100 minutes an hour, 20 hours a day. That would make 2.31 metric seconds a second)

And then we can go on with the rest of our plan and take over the world.

Bahh hah hah haaa!!!:lol:
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post #7 of 11
9/13/06 at 7:07pm
If God had wanted the metric system there would have been 10 apostles LOL!
Fluctuat nec mergitur
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post #8 of 11
9/13/06 at 9:47pm
Like I said, I'll steam roll over this one too. Don't like metric? Don't have to, but then you won't have to acknowledge that the States is only industrialized country left in the world NOT to use it. Eh, who cares?

Thing is, Metric makes sense, was purposely designed to make sense, and not based on some long-dead English King's appendage length. Who cares that the US gallon has 128 oz and an Imperial gallon 160 oz? Doesn't matter, the US is the only one left to use gallons anyway. Who cares that there's 12 inches in a foot, but inches are divided in fractions, 16 oz to a pound, but a thousand pounds to a ton? Doesn't matter. The rest of the world doesn't care about the Imperial system either. Well, at least the dollar is in metric....

Think there was an old S. African Golf Pro who was quoted as saying "Change is the price of survival" . The Big Three finally figured out the only way to sell cars to the Japanese and most of Asia was to put the steering wheel on THEIR side of the car, and it worked, too ...
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post #9 of 11
9/13/06 at 11:12pm
Actually, if God had wanted us to use the metric system, he would have given given us 10 fingers. Hold it. He did. I'll get back to you.

Seriously. I KNOW that the metric system is superior, for many things. However, I just can't shake many old habits. I'm totally with you on preferring weight measurements to volume measurements on powdered ingredients, such as flour.

And I even convert to metric for many scaling problems.

I just can't "go all the way." Hopeless American that I am.
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post #10 of 11
9/16/06 at 5:42am
I was just joking SHEESH!!!
That was something an old chef said, I thought it was hilarious.
Fluctuat nec mergitur
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post #11 of 11
9/16/06 at 9:09am
Any American having a chemistry background automatically converts to metric. Just a question of moving a simple decimal point.

Best,

 

-T

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