3 ms·

This guy just really, really wants to use his slide rule. A cheap gram-accurate scale and an electronic calculator are a more...scalable kitchen solution. Als

This guy just really, really wants to use his slide rule. A cheap gram-accurate scale and an electronic calculator are a more...scalable kitchen solution. Also, not all ingredients in a recipe scale linearly--most notably spices, tinctures, and any fermentation components.

mynegation 9mo ago
Interesting. Could you give an example? The only example I could think of is when one is making a big ball of something and needs to cover the surface with another ingredient or preparation then it would scale as ^2/3.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- D-Machine 9mo ago
  In general seasoning (or saucing) anything solid is more about exposed surface area than mass, and this depends on things like cut sizes, evaporation shrinking, and god knows what other factors. It doesn't scale with simple math, because there are all sorts of other factors involved that complicate this (surface texture just being one). It is also all moot because ingredients (especially spices) have massive variance in potency, sweetness, bitterness, sourness, etc., so recipes are only ever a guideline. I.e. if you double a spice that is twice / half as potent as expected, you can get an unpalatable / bland dish, and IMO factors between 0.25 to 4.00 are extremely common for plenty of ingredients. So you always just need to taste and adjust accordingly. This is also ignoring that certain ingredients can vary in multiple dimensions (e.g. a lemon that is a lot sweeter than expected but less sour, and so simple scaling of the lemon alone can't get you want want: you need to reach for white sugar and/or citric acid to get your desired pH and sweetness). It is also a fantasy that all flavour concentrations are perceived linearly anyway (and this is especially the case for acidity / sour / pH generally, but also spiciness in e.g. ginger, pepper, capsaicin).
paulmooreparks 9mo ago
The point of the article is that he can set the C and D scales to the proportion he needs, one time, and then just move the slider around for each ingredient, rather than doing a different calculation for each ingredient. Knowing when to vary the proportion is just basic cooking knowledge which would have to be applied either way.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >The point of the article is that he can set the C and D scales to the proportion he needs, one time, and then just move the slider around for each ingredient, rather than doing a different calculation for each ingredient. Is punching a number into a calculator and then multiplying by M (memory function, for the scale factor) really that much work than carefully sliding tithe slider into position and reading/eyeballing the output?
  - paulmooreparks 9mo ago
    Yeah. Heck, you can just prop the slide rule up somewhere and look at it without even moving the slider. No button punching required.
    - bigstrat2003 9mo ago
      It's not at all more work... I agree with the OP, this is a guy who really wants to use his slide rule and is pushing it over other (better) solutions.
    - kqr 9mo ago
      This is indeed the point. Even with messy hands you can just look at the slide rule and read off the right amounts. No need to touch the calculating device.
      - lylejantzi3rd 9mo ago
        > Even with messy hands Why would you do this while you're cooking? I do all of my calculations before I start, usually in front of a computer.

mynegation 9mo ago

Interesting. Could you give an example? The only example I could think of is when one is making a big ball of something and needs to cover the surface with another ingredient or preparation then it would scale as ^2/3.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
D-Machine 9mo ago
In general seasoning (or saucing) anything solid is more about exposed surface area than mass, and this depends on things like cut sizes, evaporation shrinking, and god knows what other factors. It doesn't scale with simple math, because there are all sorts of other factors involved that complicate this (surface texture just being one). It is also all moot because ingredients (especially spices) have massive variance in potency, sweetness, bitterness, sourness, etc., so recipes are only ever a guideline. I.e. if you double a spice that is twice / half as potent as expected, you can get an unpalatable / bland dish, and IMO factors between 0.25 to 4.00 are extremely common for plenty of ingredients. So you always just need to taste and adjust accordingly. This is also ignoring that certain ingredients can vary in multiple dimensions (e.g. a lemon that is a lot sweeter than expected but less sour, and so simple scaling of the lemon alone can't get you want want: you need to reach for white sugar and/or citric acid to get your desired pH and sweetness). It is also a fantasy that all flavour concentrations are perceived linearly anyway (and this is especially the case for acidity / sour / pH generally, but also spiciness in e.g. ginger, pepper, capsaicin).

paulmooreparks 9mo ago

The point of the article is that he can set the C and D scales to the proportion he needs, one time, and then just move the slider around for each ingredient, rather than doing a different calculation for each ingredient. Knowing when to vary the proportion is just basic cooking knowledge which would have to be applied either way.

gruez 9mo ago
>The point of the article is that he can set the C and D scales to the proportion he needs, one time, and then just move the slider around for each ingredient, rather than doing a different calculation for each ingredient. Is punching a number into a calculator and then multiplying by M (memory function, for the scale factor) really that much work than carefully sliding tithe slider into position and reading/eyeballing the output?
- paulmooreparks 9mo ago
  Yeah. Heck, you can just prop the slide rule up somewhere and look at it without even moving the slider. No button punching required.
  - bigstrat2003 9mo ago
    It's not at all more work... I agree with the OP, this is a guy who really wants to use his slide rule and is pushing it over other (better) solutions.
  - kqr 9mo ago
    This is indeed the point. Even with messy hands you can just look at the slide rule and read off the right amounts. No need to touch the calculating device.
    - lylejantzi3rd 9mo ago
      > Even with messy hands Why would you do this while you're cooking? I do all of my calculations before I start, usually in front of a computer.