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> It is so much cheaper to make your own bread. Only if you don't value your time, and ignore the energy costs of running an oven. It's a good backup option in

by klipt 7y ago

> It is so much cheaper to make your own bread. Only if you don't value your time, and ignore the energy costs of running an oven. It's a good backup option in a pandemic because flour keeps longer than bread, but normally for most professionals it's much cheaper to earn the money and buy bread that's produced in bulk.

ksdale 7y ago
I agree with you in principle, but I would point out that our long, precarious supply chains are the exact result of most professionals earning money to outsource things. I'm sure it's still a good deal, but it's less of a good deal than it looked like before supply chains started breaking left and right.
- klipt 7y ago
  Those supply chains will recover after this once-per-century risk is over (eg we find a vaccine). For now I'm still way better off as a professional who can work from home and order food online, than I would be as a subsistence farmer somewhere. And remember, being subsistence farmers without long supply chains didn't help the native Americans when Europeans arrived with a new plague they weren't immune to.
  - ksdale 7y ago
    I didn't say you should become a subsistence farmer. Mine is more of a general argument about the costs of specialization. And do you think the Native Americans were more or less specialized than the Europeans?
- tathougies 7y ago
  But the supply chains are not precarious at all, given what we've seen here. They're quite robust.
  - ksdale 7y ago
    I live in western Washington, where the stores have been more or less out of toilet paper for weeks, and as far as I can tell, this thing is months from being over in the US. The supply chains haven't broken entirely yet, which is excellent and impressive, but in my personal opinion, the jury is still out on whether they're robust.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      Toilet paper is scarcer here in Portland Oregon, but according to nextdoor, there is basically at least one store that has some everyday, and there are typically multiple.
      - ksdale 7y ago
        This just doesn't feel like robustness to me, I guess. It feels precarious, and as far as I know, we haven't yet had time to feel the ripples from electronics supply chain disruptions in China, or the pharmaceutical supply chain disruption due to India understandably limiting exports. I don't want to sound like all sour grapes, I've been hugely impressed with certain industries shifting production to make PPE on such short notice. If this was all going to be over in two weeks, I'd say supply chains passed with flying colors, but it seems like this is just the beginning.
lostlogin 7y ago
Done right it takes little time. Ingredients into the bread maker, leave it overnight, the rest in, leave it until evening then into a bannaton. Wait a bit then cool it. The main cost is remembering, as I’d spend less than 10 minutes on it over the 2 days. Maybe even less than 5 minutes. It is vastly superior in taste but each to their own as applying my logic to everything you do would use up the entire week in no time. There is a correlation between the mass production of bread and the decline in the amount consumed by the average person. The Chorleywood process has not done good things for the quality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process A sample of the criticism: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13670278 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13670278
ghaff 7y ago
The cost of the electricity is minimal. Maybe 30 cents or so in the US. But I agree with your basic point. If you consider bread baking a chore, you maybe save $4-5/loaf given artisan bread. (And, of course, less for even higher-end bread aisle bread.) >it's much cheaper to earn the money and buy bread that's produced in bulk. That said, most people don't have the option to directly turn hours of working into extra pay.
OJFord 7y ago
> normally for most professionals it's much cheaper to earn the money and buy bread that's produced in bulk. I'm a professional engineer who's baked his own bread (exclusively, barring baguettes, ciabatta, and brioche - but plan to change the first two) for the last few years. I assure you I certainly didn't sacrifice any money to do so, and there wasn't even an opportunity cost - I wasn't going to otherwise earn money in that time, I don't bill hourly. ' It also barely even takes any time, 95% of breadmaking is waiting (passively) for something to happen. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm writing this comment at such a time. The cumulative time of actively doing something is really small. > and buy bread that's produced in bulk Once you've baked some bread you won't even want to buy that sugar-laden stuff 'produced in bulk'. If I had to buy it for some reason I'd want it from an actual bakery, not a supermarket shelf, or most supermarket 'bakeries'.
gdubs 7y ago
Really depends on how we define “value”. Baking, or gardening, etc — yes they “take time” away from other value generating activities. They can also be incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable tasks.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
That has not been my experience. It takes roughly 15-20 minutes for my wife (me it is closer to 30 minutes) of actual "mix, knead, and clean the dishes" time. Our oven uses roughly 3 kWH of electricity to bake the bread (I've got these fun little current transformers on all the circuits in my house, which lets me measure these things). Wall clock time is roughly 2 hrs with two rises but during most of that time it does the work and the baker can do other productive work during that. My wife made a video[1] to demonstrate what was needed. The recipe used in the video makes two 1.5 lb loaves of bread. The cost of materials is about $1, 3 kWH of power is about $0.60 in the Bay Area. A 24 oz loaf of bread at the bakery is $4 - $6 (so $8 to $12 for two), and at a grocery $3 - $5 ($6 - $10). Given all of that; Comparing the marginal cost of using 30 minutes of your time over a span of two hourse at home to bake bread, compared to a trip to the grocery store to buy bread? For the sake of argument, lets say it takes you the same time (30 minutes) to get in your car, drive to the store, pick up some bread, and drive home. You've spent 4x to 10x the outlay, gas + commercial bread price, versus the electricity + materials bread price. So what was the marginal value of that 30 minutes? Let us also assume for the sake of argument that you actually need bread, which is to say whether you make it yourself or you go out and buy it you have determined that it was time to acquire two 24 oz loaves of bread. As you may have guessed, my wife and I have discussed this at length and argued it about six different ways. And for me at least, I always end up find it impossible to come up with a plausible way of monetizing that 30 minutes with a better economic result and still end up with bread in the pantry. I'm always open to discussion of how I could, as a systems guy I find these sorts of puzzles quite fascinating. [1] The wife making bread, note that she normally kneads bread about twice this fast :-) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvBTxvX351U&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvBTxvX351U&feature=youtu.be
- klipt 7y ago
  I wouldn't go to the grocery store just for bread. Amortized over all the other groceries it's very little effort to grab a loaf. I guess if you practice enough you can make bread quickly, but I'm not picky about carbs and making rice with a rice cooker is like, 1 minute of effort, so hard to beat that.
jopsen 7y ago
>> It is so much cheaper to make your own bread. > Only if you don't value your time,.. It's only cheaper to buy bread if you don't value quality :) When I lived in the US bread worthy of human consumption was rare. Lots (of not all) of it had added sugars and preservatives.
Yetanfou 7y ago
> Only if you don't value your time... ...which would otherwise be spent watching canned entertainment or going to the shop to get fresh bread... > ...and ignore the energy costs of running an oven ...which are negligible > normally for most professionals it's much cheaper to earn the money... It would be if those "professionals" had to take time off work to bake bread but in practice this is not what they tend to do. I'm one of them, having baked my own bread from when I went to high school. The whole process takes several hours but the actual working time is around 10-15 minutes, tops - that is when you bake no-knead bread or use a machine to do the kneading. I start the dough after dinner when the rest of the family starts to watch some form of canned entertainment. I put the bread - two loaves - in the oven, well, in a few minutes from now - around midnight. Bake for ~32 minutes at 250°C, ready. In the intervening hours I do other things, from commenting here to hacking on things. No money spent, no billable hours lost. Also... > and buy bread that's produced in bulk ...much nicer bread which was not produced in bulk, with ingredients I know and nothing more than that. No sugar, not too much salt like so many store-bought breads, no strange 'bread improvers'. I can cut the bread as thin or thick as I like. Those 2 loaves last us (2 adults, 2 children) for about a week.
throwaway55554 7y ago
Most professionals don't work hourly, do they? Most get paid based on 40 hours per week (in the US).

by klipt 7y ago

ksdale 7y ago

I agree with you in principle, but I would point out that our long, precarious supply chains are the exact result of most professionals earning money to outsource things. I'm sure it's still a good deal, but it's less of a good deal than it looked like before supply chains started breaking left and right.

klipt 7y ago
Those supply chains will recover after this once-per-century risk is over (eg we find a vaccine). For now I'm still way better off as a professional who can work from home and order food online, than I would be as a subsistence farmer somewhere. And remember, being subsistence farmers without long supply chains didn't help the native Americans when Europeans arrived with a new plague they weren't immune to.
- ksdale 7y ago
  I didn't say you should become a subsistence farmer. Mine is more of a general argument about the costs of specialization. And do you think the Native Americans were more or less specialized than the Europeans?
tathougies 7y ago
But the supply chains are not precarious at all, given what we've seen here. They're quite robust.
- ksdale 7y ago
  I live in western Washington, where the stores have been more or less out of toilet paper for weeks, and as far as I can tell, this thing is months from being over in the US. The supply chains haven't broken entirely yet, which is excellent and impressive, but in my personal opinion, the jury is still out on whether they're robust.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Toilet paper is scarcer here in Portland Oregon, but according to nextdoor, there is basically at least one store that has some everyday, and there are typically multiple.
    - ksdale 7y ago
      This just doesn't feel like robustness to me, I guess. It feels precarious, and as far as I know, we haven't yet had time to feel the ripples from electronics supply chain disruptions in China, or the pharmaceutical supply chain disruption due to India understandably limiting exports. I don't want to sound like all sour grapes, I've been hugely impressed with certain industries shifting production to make PPE on such short notice. If this was all going to be over in two weeks, I'd say supply chains passed with flying colors, but it seems like this is just the beginning.

lostlogin 7y ago

Done right it takes little time. Ingredients into the bread maker, leave it overnight, the rest in, leave it until evening then into a bannaton. Wait a bit then cool it. The main cost is remembering, as I’d spend less than 10 minutes on it over the 2 days. Maybe even less than 5 minutes. It is vastly superior in taste but each to their own as applying my logic to everything you do would use up the entire week in no time. There is a correlation between the mass production of bread and the decline in the amount consumed by the average person. The Chorleywood process has not done good things for the quality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process A sample of the criticism: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13670278 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-13670278

ghaff 7y ago

The cost of the electricity is minimal. Maybe 30 cents or so in the US. But I agree with your basic point. If you consider bread baking a chore, you maybe save $4-5/loaf given artisan bread. (And, of course, less for even higher-end bread aisle bread.) >it's much cheaper to earn the money and buy bread that's produced in bulk. That said, most people don't have the option to directly turn hours of working into extra pay.

OJFord 7y ago

> normally for most professionals it's much cheaper to earn the money and buy bread that's produced in bulk. I'm a professional engineer who's baked his own bread (exclusively, barring baguettes, ciabatta, and brioche - but plan to change the first two) for the last few years. I assure you I certainly didn't sacrifice any money to do so, and there wasn't even an opportunity cost - I wasn't going to otherwise earn money in that time, I don't bill hourly. ' It also barely even takes any time, 95% of breadmaking is waiting (passively) for something to happen. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm writing this comment at such a time. The cumulative time of actively doing something is really small. > and buy bread that's produced in bulk Once you've baked some bread you won't even want to buy that sugar-laden stuff 'produced in bulk'. If I had to buy it for some reason I'd want it from an actual bakery, not a supermarket shelf, or most supermarket 'bakeries'.

gdubs 7y ago

Really depends on how we define “value”. Baking, or gardening, etc — yes they “take time” away from other value generating activities. They can also be incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable tasks.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

That has not been my experience. It takes roughly 15-20 minutes for my wife (me it is closer to 30 minutes) of actual "mix, knead, and clean the dishes" time. Our oven uses roughly 3 kWH of electricity to bake the bread (I've got these fun little current transformers on all the circuits in my house, which lets me measure these things). Wall clock time is roughly 2 hrs with two rises but during most of that time it does the work and the baker can do other productive work during that. My wife made a video[1] to demonstrate what was needed. The recipe used in the video makes two 1.5 lb loaves of bread. The cost of materials is about $1, 3 kWH of power is about $0.60 in the Bay Area. A 24 oz loaf of bread at the bakery is $4 - $6 (so $8 to $12 for two), and at a grocery $3 - $5 ($6 - $10). Given all of that; Comparing the marginal cost of using 30 minutes of your time over a span of two hourse at home to bake bread, compared to a trip to the grocery store to buy bread? For the sake of argument, lets say it takes you the same time (30 minutes) to get in your car, drive to the store, pick up some bread, and drive home. You've spent 4x to 10x the outlay, gas + commercial bread price, versus the electricity + materials bread price. So what was the marginal value of that 30 minutes? Let us also assume for the sake of argument that you actually need bread, which is to say whether you make it yourself or you go out and buy it you have determined that it was time to acquire two 24 oz loaves of bread. As you may have guessed, my wife and I have discussed this at length and argued it about six different ways. And for me at least, I always end up find it impossible to come up with a plausible way of monetizing that 30 minutes with a better economic result and still end up with bread in the pantry. I'm always open to discussion of how I could, as a systems guy I find these sorts of puzzles quite fascinating. [1] The wife making bread, note that she normally kneads bread about twice this fast :-) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvBTxvX351U&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvBTxvX351U&feature=youtu.be

klipt 7y ago
I wouldn't go to the grocery store just for bread. Amortized over all the other groceries it's very little effort to grab a loaf. I guess if you practice enough you can make bread quickly, but I'm not picky about carbs and making rice with a rice cooker is like, 1 minute of effort, so hard to beat that.

jopsen 7y ago

>> It is so much cheaper to make your own bread. > Only if you don't value your time,.. It's only cheaper to buy bread if you don't value quality :) When I lived in the US bread worthy of human consumption was rare. Lots (of not all) of it had added sugars and preservatives.

Yetanfou 7y ago

> Only if you don't value your time... ...which would otherwise be spent watching canned entertainment or going to the shop to get fresh bread... > ...and ignore the energy costs of running an oven ...which are negligible > normally for most professionals it's much cheaper to earn the money... It would be if those "professionals" had to take time off work to bake bread but in practice this is not what they tend to do. I'm one of them, having baked my own bread from when I went to high school. The whole process takes several hours but the actual working time is around 10-15 minutes, tops - that is when you bake no-knead bread or use a machine to do the kneading. I start the dough after dinner when the rest of the family starts to watch some form of canned entertainment. I put the bread - two loaves - in the oven, well, in a few minutes from now - around midnight. Bake for ~32 minutes at 250°C, ready. In the intervening hours I do other things, from commenting here to hacking on things. No money spent, no billable hours lost. Also... > and buy bread that's produced in bulk ...much nicer bread which was not produced in bulk, with ingredients I know and nothing more than that. No sugar, not too much salt like so many store-bought breads, no strange 'bread improvers'. I can cut the bread as thin or thick as I like. Those 2 loaves last us (2 adults, 2 children) for about a week.

throwaway55554 7y ago

Most professionals don't work hourly, do they? Most get paid based on 40 hours per week (in the US).