Good food scales?

knelson095

Hey all, haven't been on community in years, but I was hoping you fine people could help me out.

I use a food scale to weight out my foods and I make large meals that I then portion out, so I need a higher capacity scale, like 22lbs. I have used my old trusty Ozeri 11 lb one for years now, but I am looking to upgrade. I just bought the Taylor one from Wal-Mart and I got it home to discover it doesn't do negative values! The disappointment was tremendous, lol. I frequently put my pb, honey, what-have-you, on the scale, tare, remove what I'll use and the negative number shows me what I have taken. I had no idea all scales did not do this? Anyway, now I'm researching scales and have found that this is not really something they advertise as a feature. I am afraid to order anything and have it also not do what I need. My husband suggested I keep this one and only use it for my batch cooking, but my kitchen is so cluttered as it is, I don't want 2 scales to shuffle around.

So, do any of you have any recommendations for a good scale that has a higher weight capacity and also does negative values? Thank you!

goal06082021

I use an Escali, which is in a similar class as your Ozeri - 11lb max, will do negatives. The thing about scales is that, from what I've seen, the higher the max weight, the less granular the increment, and sometimes they have a min weight as well - so there are postal scales like this one on Amazon that will comfortably measure up to 90 lbs, but their smallest increment is 0.1 oz (2.8g), and they won't register anything lighter than 10g.

I also meal prep and use my scale to evenly divide portions, and my cookware is pretty heavy, which I imagine is also your problem - running up against that 11lb limit is easy when you're trying to weigh a Dutch oven full of soup or whatever. The best workaround I've found is to divide the dish among however many containers, start with something that looks less than reasonable and move things around until it's all equal. If my containers aren't identical (which is, infuriatingly, almost all of them), I'll put little post-it flags with the tare weight on each of them and just do the math.

The_Elephant_Man

knelson095 wrote: »

Hey all, haven't been on community in years, but I was hoping you fine people could help me out.

I use a food scale to weight out my foods and I make large meals that I then portion out, so I need a higher capacity scale, like 22lbs. I have used my old trusty Ozeri 11 lb one for years now, but I am looking to upgrade. I just bought the Taylor one from Wal-Mart and I got it home to discover it doesn't do negative values! The disappointment was tremendous, lol. I frequently put my pb, honey, what-have-you, on the scale, tare, remove what I'll use and the negative number shows me what I have taken. I had no idea all scales did not do this? Anyway, now I'm researching scales and have found that this is not really something they advertise as a feature. I am afraid to order anything and have it also not do what I need. My husband suggested I keep this one and only use it for my batch cooking, but my kitchen is so cluttered as it is, I don't want 2 scales to shuffle around.

So, do any of you have any recommendations for a good scale that has a higher weight capacity and also does negative values? Thank you!

@knelson095 , Don't remember the brand but it came from Wal-Mart and it has the tare function.

knelson095

goal06082021 wrote: »

I use an Escali, which is in a similar class as your Ozeri - 11lb max, will do negatives. The thing about scales is that, from what I've seen, the higher the max weight, the less granular the increment, and sometimes they have a min weight as well - so there are postal scales like this one on Amazon that will comfortably measure up to 90 lbs, but their smallest increment is 0.1 oz (2.8g), and they won't register anything lighter than 10g.

I also meal prep and use my scale to evenly divide portions, and my cookware is pretty heavy, which I imagine is also your problem - running up against that 11lb limit is easy when you're trying to weigh a Dutch oven full of soup or whatever. The best workaround I've found is to divide the dish among however many containers, start with something that looks less than reasonable and move things around until it's all equal. If my containers aren't identical (which is, infuriatingly, almost all of them), I'll put little post-it flags with the tare weight on each of them and just do the math.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your method! I had no idea when I started looking that this would be so difficult, lol. What you explain will work when I meal prep, but I frequently cook for up to 11 people, so large batches and everyone just taking what they want from the pan/pot. I don't know that my family would appreciate me making them weigh all their portions out, ha.

I think I will look at some Escali scales and see if they have a higher capacity one that will fit my needs. Stands to reason if yours does the negative values then others probably will too.

rosebarnalice

Love my OXO. It was inexpensive, high capacity, tares easily, does negatives and the display bar pulls out to accommodate very large mixing bowls

callsitlikeiseeit

if you are creating a recipe you have the weights of everything- keep it all in the same unit

so...

(totally an example and not a real recipe)

soup:

chicken stock 500 grams
chicken 200 grams
carrots 200 grams
celery 100 grams
onion 100 grams

total weight is 1100 grams, so 1100 servings. the recipe builder will do the math for the calorie count based on your entries for the recipe

no need to weight pots and pans

callsitlikeiseeit

rosebarnalice wrote: »

Love my OXO. It was inexpensive, high capacity, tares easily, does negatives and the display bar pulls out to accommodate very large mixing bowls

i had one that pulled out. I LOVED it. it died

knelson095

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

if you are creating a recipe you have the weights of everything- keep it all in the same unit

so...

(totally an example and not a real recipe)

soup:

chicken stock 500 grams
chicken 200 grams
carrots 200 grams
celery 100 grams
onion 100 grams

total weight is 1100 grams, so 1100 servings. the recipe builder will do the math for the calorie count based on your entries for the recipe

no need to weight pots and pans

IME cooking changes the weight, sometimes pretty dramatically.

knelson095

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

rosebarnalice wrote: »

Love my OXO. It was inexpensive, high capacity, tares easily, does negatives and the display bar pulls out to accommodate very large mixing bowls

i had one that pulled out. I LOVED it. it died

I had one from costco that pulled out. It was higher capacity too, but it died after just a few months. I was super bummed.