Scaling Hamelman
"Bread" by Jeffery Hamelman is aimed at professional bakers and secondarily at home bakers. He gives each formula in 3 versions:
- US - decimal lbs (no ounces) usually for about 22 loaves
- Metric - Kilograms usually for about 25 loaves (no doubt the difference in quantity is due to the meter being slightly longer than the yard; just kidding)
- Home - Lbs and oz, usually for 2 loaves
I hate working in lbs and oz, or even decimal lbs, so I use the metric measurements. I used to scale them to 450g of flour for a single loaf and pencil in the result in the book. When I started using more of the formulas, I got lazy and just divided by 20 with mental arithmetic, After struggling with sourdough, it seemed as if double-size loaves worked better than single ones, so I just divided by 10 rather than 20 (even easier and less error-prone). These tend to be on the large side, perhaps a bit too big for the oval basket I use for proofing batards.
I'm curious what other home bakers do with Hamelman formulas. And what size banneton works best for batards that come in around 1.7 kg.
Thanks
Whenever I use Hamelman’s formulas I take the metric measurements and simply divide by 10. I divide the dough into two loaves, each a bit larger than specified, or 3 loaves, each a bit smaller. Typically the larger loaves fit nicely in a 9-10” brotform and the smaller ones in an 8” round. For me either would fit in a single bake on my stone.
-Brad
I would love to do that, but I can't fit two dutch ovens in my oven; I get much better oven spring with a dutch oven than with a stone and a pan for steam.
I could retard both loaves in the fridge and bake them one at a time.
I found a very basic Excel spreadsheet on the web. It has a nice feature in that it can scale any recipe that's entered. I enter Hamelman's metric quantities and then enter the desired loaf size. I tend to favor pan loaves and aim for 850–1000 g total dough weight (≈500 g flour) for a loaf. It also comes in handy if I'm slightly short an ingredient then I can scale the recipe to that ingredient.
New Weight / Old Weight
Then multiply each ingredient by the answer. And obviously use metric if you're working in grams.
Nowadays I typically scale hearth breads down to 400g of flour per loaf. Bagels - to 900 g per dozen.
Do you notice any difference between dealing with a 400g loaf vs a bigger one? I' can't swear to this but it seems as if double-size (~900g flour) loaves are more forgiving.
I very much prefer the smaller size. I tried 500, but 400 works better for me. 900 would be way too much, I don't even know how I would go about proofing it unless it were a boule.
I make spread sheets based on the baker's percentages in his formulas. 1.Saves me converting from us oz to grams. 2. I insert the amount of dough I need in grams. This link is an example for his Vermont sourdough with whole wheat. I make two 750 gram loaves at a time. You can download it and have a play. https://www.dropbox.com/s/e9h924aqnczvw4e/Vermont%20Sourdough%20with%20whole%20wheat.xls?dl=0
You can change any of the orange cells (light or dark).
Cheers,
Gavin.