Volume measurements vs weight measurements

[xrayguy]

Warning: I'm a noob on the forum, but I have read through every post concrrning Chicago Style pizza. I have several questions, but I will post them separately since they are not all related.

Right now, a digital scale is not in my budget, so the only way I have to measure is by volume. Would I still get decent results by rounding the dough ingredients to the nearest measurable quantity using my standard cups and spoons?

[Tscarborough]

Weighing ingredients is a new invention, great results have been had for thousands of years with volume measurements.

[Matthew]

Tom is the king of volume measurements & has the pictures to prove it.

Matt

[xrayguy]

Volume measurements it is then. Although I do like the idea of the preciseness that comes with weighing ingredients, the cost of a quality digital scale that can measure down to .1 grams is very prohibitive.

Cody

[Pete-zza]

My recollection is that Fred Flintstone had a scale. I think it was a balance scale.

Seriously though, Cody, if there is a good recipe recited in volume measurements, you should feel free to use it. However, I don't know what rounding the volume measurements up or down to the nearest measuring cup/spoon size will do to any given recipe since I have never tried that.

Also, if you find a good recipe with baker's percents, you can try using the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator at http://tools.foodsim.com/ to convert from weights to volumes. That tool was designed by one of our members (November) specifically for people who do not have scales or choose not to use them for some reason. The principal conversion that you would need is the conversion of the flour and water from weights to volumes. Most of the other ingredients would be recited in both weights and volumes if one of the dough calculating tools was used to produce the recipe in a post on the forum. If semolina is one of the ingredients, it will be necessary to find the conversion factor elsewhere because semolina is not an ingredient in the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator. Hopefully, the type and brand of flour you decide to use is one of those listed in the pull-down menu.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Volume measurements it is then. Although I do like the idea of the preciseness that comes with weighing ingredients, the cost of a quality digital scale that can measure down to .1 grams is very prohibitive.

Cody,

You really don't need a fancy scale. The main ingredients that you would be weighing are the heavy items, like flour and water and possibly oil if used in a large quantity (e.g., for a deep-dish dough using a lot of oil). Most of the other ingredients are typically recited in volume measurements and don't need to be weighed. If you end up using a recipe produced by one of the dough calculating tools on the forum, the volume measurements are given in the recipe itself.

Peter

[Crider]

I got my first scale for 50¢ at a yard sale. It was low end, but served my purpose for a couple of years. Then I went all multimillionaire and spent $21 and got an Escali from Amazon.com. I'll never go back to volume measuring because of repeatability issues and because there's a ton of recipes on websites other than American websites, and none of them use volume, they all use grams.