Digital scale negative weight to weigh out portions


 
DanHoo

DanHoo

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Maybe everyone knows this but I thought I'd share. I've had a digital scale for a long, long time. Yesterday, I stumbled into a new way to use it.

I had leftover brisket that I shredded to vac-seal and freeze. I wasn't sure of the weight so I put the meat in a SS bowl on the digi-scale, hit tare, added the shredded meat and and it was an ounce over 3 lbs. Cool. Two, pound and a half portions for chili will be perfect

In the past I'd add meat into bags and weigh the vac-seal bag until it had the correct weight. Yesterday when I started pulling the meat out of the bowl it was still on the scale and I saw the scale going negative...

My first thoughts were "cool" and then "DUH" I've been doing this the hard way for a long time.

So I just removed meat from the bowl to the bag until it was at negative 1 lb, 8 oz, then filled the other bag. When done I weighted the bags. and they were spot on.

This will save a bunch of time for portioning out pulled pork and pastrami in the future.
 
Timothy F. Lewis said:
Yes, “tare weight” is a very handy use of scales! I sometimes engrave tare weights on the bottom of SS bowls, “just in case” I forget to do that particular part in the heat of slicing and packing.
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Yeah, I use tare all the time. The new learning for me was using tare then letting the scale go negative as I removed the product from the bowl.
 
I do something similar with propane tanks. I use a $10 digital luggage scale when the tank gets low, but I lift the tank with the luggage scale and hit tare (zero) with the tank suspended and stable. Then when I set the tank down, I read the negative value and subtract the tare weight of the tank from it. I find I get a more accurate weight that way because my scale tends to lock on a value before the weight is stabilized when using it conventionally.
 
I tare out a bowl then add the product until it reaches the desired weight. This not only gives you the proper weight with no math or extra handling, but dumping out of the bowl into a vacuum bag is a great way to keep the rim of the bag clean. Really helps when vacuum sealing.
 
Bob Bailey said:
I tare out a bowl then add the product until it reaches the desired weight. This not only gives you the proper weight with no math or extra handling, but dumping out of the bowl into a vacuum bag is a great way to keep the rim of the bag clean. Really helps when vacuum sealing.
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Works well too when adding weighed ingredients to a work bowl. This way each measurement is accurate.
 
Bob Bailey said:
I tare out a bowl then add the product until it reaches the desired weight. This not only gives you the proper weight with no math or extra handling, but dumping out of the bowl into a vacuum bag is a great way to keep the rim of the bag clean. Really helps when vacuum sealing.
Click to expand...
That's usually what I've done but this seemed like less work.


Brett-EDH said:
Works well too when adding weighed ingredients to a work bowl. This way each measurement is accurate.
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Yup ^
 
Surprised many here did not know about how to use "tare" function to get more versatility out of your scale. I actually have one (my bigger coffee scale) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVVNXN3N?tag=tvwb-20 has so many cool functions it can even do liquid measure and it's spot on. So if you want to make your coffee REALLY accurately you measure the amount of coffee and the amount of water precisely.
Anyway I HIGHLY recommend that scale especially at it's price. I use it for all kind of functions in the kitchen
 
I grew up using tare weights...... albeit on a slightly larger scale (pun intended.) Learned hauling grain, cattle, fruit, etc. on the farm. Weigh the truck full, unload, weigh empty (completely manual balance scales.) These days, I use the tare functions all the time. Just makes life easier.
 
That is how I make different kinds of sourdough recipes.
It is much faster than pre weighing all the different ingredients.
The clean up is minimized as well.
 
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