AmazingRibs Recipes: BY WEIGHT

[cactus]

When I cook, I usually prefer to measure ingredients (especially dry ingredients) by weight instead of by volume.
I won't extol the virtues of measurement by weight here, but I will post my measurements in case they're useful to someone.

As I (re-)cook various recipes, I'll update this thread with new conversions.

Meathead's Memphis Dust Rub Recipe (1/2 batch):
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/rubs_...phis_dust.html

3/8 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar	80g
3/8 cup white sugar	89g
1/4 cup paprika	33g
1/8 cup garlic powder	22g
1 tbsp ground black pepper	9g
1 tbsp ginger powder	7g
1 tbsp onion powder	9g
1 tsp rosemary powder	1.5g

edit: adding more recipes to first post


Lexington Dip BBQ sauce:
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/BBQ_s...ngton_dip.html

1 cup distilled vinegar	240g
1/4 cup ketchup	68g
1/4 cup apple juice	65g
1 tsp hot sauce	5g
3 tbsp light brown sugar	40g
1/2 tbsp salt	10g
1 tsp crushed red pepper	2g
1 tsp finely ground black pepper	3g

Big Bad Beef Rub:
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/rubs_..._beef_rub.html

3 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper	27g
1 tbsp granulated white sugar	15g
1 tbsp onion powder	9g
2 tsp mustard powder	7g
2 tsp garlic powder	7g
2 tsp chili or ancho powder	6g
1 tsp chipotle or cayenne powder	3g

more to come

[Jerod Broussard]

Nice chart. When making sausage EVERYTHING gets weighed. Even the water.

For rubs I just roll with volume.

[cactus]

yeah, accuracy concerns aside, i just personally find it generally faster and easier work with weights.. no need to bust out measuring cups or spoons. only one container to clean (the one you set on your scale). dump in an ingredient, hit tare, and move onto the next one. others may find it more convenient to not bust out the scale.

Lexington Dip BBQ sauce
http://amazingribs.com/recipes/BBQ_s...ngton_dip.html

1 cup distilled vinegar	240g
1/4 cup ketchup	68g
1/4 cup apple juice	65g
1 tsp hot sauce	5g
3 tbsp light brown sugar	40g
1/2 tbsp salt	10g
1 tsp crushed red pepper	2g
1 tsp finely ground black pepper	3g

[Breadhead]

Cactus... Thank you!

Measuring by weight is much more accurate and much easier and like you said... Less messy.

I actually told Meathead a few weeks ago I was working on a baker's percentage chart for Memphis Dust. I got sidetracked with other things.

I'm glad you beat me to it.

[mhalbrook]

Thank you! I do most of my stuff by metric weight. Like you, I prefer to use one bowl/tare/add. I find it quicker, and it's easier to scale If I get to any of them before you post them I'll contribute my findings.

[Breadhead]

Cactus... Most people these days that bake bread go by weight and the majority of them use the metric system. There's 28 grams in an ounce. Its just easier to use grams in my humble opinion.

[cactus]

Wartface, maybe i'm misunderstanding, but my figures are in grams.
i agree that the metric system is nice.

[Usernamevalid]

A recipe that says 'season to taste' must send you guys into a full blown anxiety attack!

[Usernamevalid]

Ok, so you use weight, and I'll use volume, and that other guy over there will just dump stuff in the bowl until it looks right. When we're each done, we're going to put some on a spoon or take a pinch between our fingers and look up at the ceiling. Then we'll go: "Hmmm", or make some other noise, and we're going to start adjusting the ingredients until it tastes the way we want.

Yes?

The chart above says that 3/4 cup of firmly packed brown sugar weighs 80 grams. Then, in your response you say packing can vary from person to person. Are we to accept cactus' weight as the correct firmness in packing? What if you do your own chart and your brown sugar pack weighs 85 grams?

Accuracy is important is some things, it's not important in others. If I were making sausage, or bread, or wine, or beer...yes. When I'm loading ammunition, a half a grain can make a big difference.

For rubs, sauces, and the majority of stuff most of us make...nah. Relax, have fun, enjoy the cook.

[Breadhead]

@Usernamevalid


"A recipe that says 'season to taste' must send you guys into a full blown anxiety attack!"

Most people that follow recipes... Understand that that statement means, we all have different pallets, our taste buds are different - if you prefer more salt feel free to add salt to satisfy your desired taste preferences.

Most people that have the creativity to actually create their own recipes understand that clearly and are giving their follower's the freedom to make slight adjustments to the recipe to enhance the flavor to fit their preference.

As Meathead says in many of his recipes... Please cook this recipe the first time as I've written it and then make adjustments the next time to fit your desired results... Or something like that.

Just my humble opinion...

[(fuzz)]

I had a guy ask me the other day "I am really supposed to taste this raw meat to see how much seasoning to use!?"

[Steve Vojtek]

I also prefer metric weight for baking and measuring salts and curing salts for bacon etc. But for rubs i'm happy to use volumetric measurements - a little bit of variety doesn't hurt...little bit more of this little bit less of that... just IMHO

[Meathead]

Thanks! My first mission was to get people to start using thermometers. Next: Scales!

[mhalbrook]

One of my biggest frustrations at work is when people ask me "how long did you cook that meat for". I keep a thermometer handy and hold it up, and say "til this said it was where I wanted it". When I worked for Safeway, I managed to move our slow moving chimney starters, thanks in large part to this site. They were junk, but they were also Marked down to $5 at that point cuz they wouldn't move. Now when we do our Turkey table at the holidays, I'm one of the ones that takes the orders, I've asked the home goods manager to keep a display of remote probe thermometers on the counter, and I move them. I find out how they're planing to do their turkey and either send em to here or to the "Romancing the Bird" episode of Good Eats.

[Breadhead]

Meathead my Thermapen and my inexpensive digital scale are 2 of my most important cooking tools.

I could cook without them but why would I want to do that? They just make things easier and more accurate.

You telling me years ago to buy a Thermapen was my first MAJOR step forward in improving my grilling and BBQ skills.

I've had a digital scales for 3 years and I find it just as valuable for grilling and BBQ as the Thermapen. When you say use 8oz of wood to smoke something I weight a few chunks of wood on my scale so I accurately follow your suggestion. At the end of the cook I make a note if it needs more or less wood the next time.

Being able to duplicate a particularly good cook is a blessing.

[mhalbrook]

Don't assume I don't get creative and go off script. While I like to have metric weights to start from, I often will go off the beaten path. And I don't follow my own suggestions to others. I was teaching someone to make browned butter once. I told them "and never walk away while you brown it" as I walked out of the kitchen to deal with something. The difference is I knew the stove I was working on, and I knew how long it'd take to get to where I wanted it, I knew I could walk away for a second. I also highly endorse following the recipe to the letter for baked goods. But outside a few items, I don't personally do that. With the exception of the white bread formula I have and a few cookies I've worked on nailing down, I wing most of my baking.
I've been baking long enough, and studied the chemistry enough that I understand the interactions of the ingredients. I know what happens if I increase the baking soda, or add cream of tartar. I know what happens if I swap dutch process cocoa for regular. My cookies I follow my formulas for come out consistently, the ones I wing come out good, but are unpredictable, some are home runs some fall short. That's why I try to record weights when I'm playing, so I can reproduce the hits. And I've found metric weight to be the best way to do that when aiming for consistency. I like to play, but I also like to have safe consistent fall backs.

[Breadhead]

I know as a matter of fact that when baking bread a SLIGHT variance in a recipe can make a bread dough almost impossible to handle for a beginning baker.

If a bread recipe calls for 500 grams of flour, 400 grams, 66% of the weight of the flour, of water and 12 grams of salt. A beginning bread baker has a good chance of making that recipe work. However... If, I up the hydration level of that recipe by 20 grams, less than 1 ounce, a beginning baker would have almost NO CHANCE of making that dough come together and developing the gluten strands to create a decent loaf of bread. 500 grams of flour makes a big pile and less than 1 ounce of water changes the game dramatically.

The entire baking industry worldwide uses weight, not volume, and they ALL use the metric system, grams, not ounces. Baking is a science - baker's operate within a system called the baker's percentage. It's a numerical system that makes recipes/formulas exact. Baker's have their own lingo. They don't have recipes, baker's have formulas. Baker's can make 1 loaf of bread off of that formula or they can scale that formula up in their head, no calculator needed, to bake 100 loaves of bread.

Now... Let's try to relate that to Memphis Dust. How do you measure a tablespoon? What did Meathead mean when he said a tablespoon? Was it scoop into the pepper container and get a heaping tablespoon of pepper and dump it into the bowl, or did he mean scoop it out, level it off and then add it to the bowl? There can be somewhere of around a 30% variance there. However if his recipe said 10 grams of pepper, everyone in the world with a scale would have put the same exact amount of pepper in the bowl.

Weighing allows you to duplicate the bread/rubs/sauces and recipes that you enjoy the most, exactly the same, time after time. Volume measurements does not allow that.

Here's some data I use to support my opinion...

Weight vs Volume — ChefSteps.com - Accuracy
Measuring cups and spoons are surprisingly inaccurate. Cups and spoons that should be the same volume often vary a lot. Worse, a lot of inaccuracy creeps into a recipe depending on what is being measured and who is doing the measurement. In our experience, the same recipe scaled multiple times can vary by as much as 10% relative to the true weight of the ingredients. This is often the reason that people find that a particular recipe "fails" when they try to reproduce it—inaccuracies have crept in at every step. Working by weight is both faster and more accurate. After a little practice you'll find yourself annoyed when a recipe doesn't list ingredients by weight.

http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/...olume-accuracy


Weigh Ingredients - ChefSteps.com
All of our recipes are measured in weight, rather than volume. We firmly believe that weighing ingredients makes cooking easier, faster, and more fun. If you haven't yet tried it, trust us: it will change your life. Scales are only $20.

Weight vs Volume - Speed
http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/...s-volume-speed

[Breadhead]

@mhalbrook... If you know the baker's percentage there is no winging it in bread baking. Flour is always 100% of the formula. Water, yeast/starter and salt is just a % of the bread flour. You as the baker can decide to use just a pinch of yeast/starter or have 30% of the flour from the starter. You as the baker can choose to use 60% of the weight of the flour of water or 90%. You can choose to use 1% of the flour weight of salt or, 2/3%.

Knowing how to work a 60%/70%/80% or 90% hydration dough is what separates the beginner from the expert. I don't know any Artisan baker's that wing it. Artisan baker's always know exactly what the formula is - exactly!

You may increase your hydration, your flour type. You may make a direct dough or and indirect dough. You can speed up your proofing and fermentation or delay it. But... To do either with bread dough you have to know the science of what is happening.

Just my humble opinion.

[mhalbrook]

Breadhead that was my point, *I* do understand the science of it all. I can work from metric weight, I can work from baker's percentages (Or as Rhulman calls it Ratios). But sometimes I just want to experiment and see what falls out, and make dough with out actually measuring at all. The only time I've had a fail was when I neglected to add the salt in to the dough. But I'd never advocate that method to someone learning to bake. Let's face it, when all is said and done, the difference between breads is all in the ratio of flour to water. Salt and yeast play a part, but the hydration and starters are what set a French Batard apart from a Cibatta.

[Breadhead]

@mahalbrook I understand what you're saying. It sounds like you're an informed baker of bread. I find bread to be as interesting as BBQ.

I guess we're just different in how we go about it. I don't ever make bread without knowing exactly what's in it. Especially if I'm trying a new idea or hydration percentage. Those I keep detailed notes on just in case I might want to make that exact same bread in the future.

I find bread making is more about technic's than recipes and formulas. Recipes and formulas are a dime a dozen. You can find 1000's of them for free online. Knowing how to mix the ingredients, what type of kneading process to use to develop the gluten structure, how to shape it, how to final proof it, how to dock it, at what temperature to bake and getting steam when needed is the magic of bread baking.

Thanks for this discussion it's been fun.

[cactus]

just some clarification on my methodology for these gravimetric recipe conversions:

i follow the recipes as written on amazingribs to the best of my ability, and i carefully weigh the amount in each step as i go along. i also re-sample volumetrically (i.e. scoop another cup or whatever the recipe calls for) and weigh that again to make sure i get a similar weight. as a third data point, i then cross-reference with online ingredient density information if it is available. if the weights are all pretty consistent (they usually are), then i add an average, round figure to my recipe spreadsheet.

in summary, i want the figures i'm posting to be well thought out, and i want those weights to yield something that tastes just like every other time i've prepared the recipes volumetrically in the past. you can certainly split hairs over my scooping technique being different than someone else's. obviously, with the inherent inaccuracy/inconsistency of measuring dry ingredients volumetrically, only Meathead (and people Meathead's cooked for) knows what Meathead's recipes precisely taste like. perhaps someday there will be official Meathead-forumlated gravimetric recipes

also, in case anyone is curious about the brown sugar packing: i packed it pretty firmly.

[Usernamevalid]

And 999 of them are fully enjoyed!

[Dr ROK]

I appreciate you commitment to consistency. While using volume will turn out a rub that tastes probably as close to the one that is measured with a scale that you can't tell the difference, I find measuring to just be easier. Like you said, one bowl to clean up and just start adding the substances till you get the weight you're targeting. Thanks for this recipe. I hope you continue with other recipes on this site and post your results.

[Cory H.]

@Cactus:
Just found this thread, but had to say, "Thanks!". I jotted down the weights that I came up with as I made the Memphis Dust for the first time, but lost the sheet of paper!
I was indeed curious about the brown sugar packing-- it was just a teensy bit sweet for my tastes the way I made it. I always assume a cup of white sugar or a cup of packed brown sugar is 200 grams just to make my life easier.
A good reason for publishing recipes by weight!

[Usernamevalid]

Now... Let's try to relate that to Memphis Dust. How do you measure a tablespoon? What did Meathead mean when he said a tablespoon? Was it scoop into the pepper container and get a heaping tablespoon of pepper and dump it into the bowl, or did he mean scoop it out, level it off and then add it to the bowl? There can be somewhere of around a 30% variance there. However if his recipe said 10 grams of pepper, everyone in the world with a scale would have put the same exact amount of pepper in the bowl.

Weighing allows you to duplicate the bread/rubs/sauces and recipes that you enjoy the most, exactly the same, time after time.

Ok, we've already agreed that certain things call for accuracy, while other do not. This one absolutely...does not. I am never ever going to sweat my pepper, pour it into a bowl, weigh it, add or subtract. Who cares if everyone in the world uses the exact same amount when the vast majority are going to adjust anyway?

The instructions say 10 minutes to find everything and 5 minutes to dump them together. That's 'dump'. Not get out the scales, weigh the tare, etc.. If the difference between a level measurement and a heaping measurement is critical, then it's up to the author to say so. The vast majority of the cooking world understands that when given without description, level is the order of business.

Well, a good healthy debate anyway. I have to go fire up the smoker. There are 5 slabs of ribs with un-weighed dry brine on them setting in the fridge since yesterday afternoon. I need to brush some unmeasured oil on them and sprinkle one or two tablespoons (Depends on if you follow the directions under 'Method' or 'Yield', as it contradicts itself) of Memphis Dust, which may be heaping or level, depending on how adventurous I feel, and get them in so they're ready for dinner.

Happy Father's Day!

[Breadhead]

Usernamevalid

Everyone has their own way of doing things. You like to wing it. I encourage you to do your thing in any way that makes you happy.

I like to try to execute things exactly as I had planned. Figuring a workable shortcut is fun. Making slight changes to recipes to fit your pallet is often required. However when I do finally find the winning adjustments I want to be able to duplicate that recipe every time I cook it.

Measuring by weight is faster, more accurate, less messy and repeatable.

Many great Chef's understand and use the bakers percentage. They write and record their recipes under that format. Chef Jacob Burton who owns and operates StellaCulinary.com is one of them. He taught me the Baker's Percentage system in a short video he has posted on his website. He uses that format for all of his recipe's not just baked goods.

That's just the way my brain operates. It works for me.

Happy Father's Day...

[Breadhead]

@Userinvalid... "Ok, we've already agreed that certain things call for accuracy, while other do not."

My methodology is if Meathead publishes a Recipe... My desire is to produce it EXACTLY how he published it. Then I can judge it and adjust it to my preferences.

If Meathead published his recipes in weight, I could duplicate it exactly. Measuring in volume you're going to get a + or - variance of 10%.

[Breadhead]

My Father's Day present from my son. We're going to feast tonight! What a beautiful hunk of meat.

Happy Fathers Day to all Pit members.

[cactus]

Ok, we've already agreed that certain things call for accuracy, while other do not. This one absolutely...does not. ... Who cares if everyone in the world uses the exact same amount when the vast majority are going to adjust anyway?

i'm with you. accuracy is not the primary concern for me in wanting to prep rubs and sauces by weight. obviously they can be prepared volumetrically just fine. side note: i tweak the recipes for myself as well. my personal recipe spreadsheet has slightly different figures than the ones i'm posting here. for example, in the memphis dust, i am leaning towards using a little less garlic, a little more rosemary, more ginger, add a bit of heat, etc. to each his own.

...
The instructions say 10 minutes to find everything and 5 minutes to dump them together. That's 'dump'. Not get out the scales, weigh the tare, etc..

for me personally, i just find it faster, easier, and less messy to use a scale. people like Wartface are the same way.
my scale has a permanent place on my countertop. my measuring cups do not.
for someone that has to go fishing around in the cupboards to find a scale, put new batteries in it, etc etc, of course using measuring cups is faster and more convenient for them. everyone has their own preferred set of tools.

[mhalbrook]

for me personally, i just find it faster, easier, and less messy to use a scale. people like Wartface are the same way.
my scale has a permanent place on my countertop. my measuring cups do not.
for someone that has to go fishing around in the cupboards to find a scale, put new batteries in it, etc etc, of course using measuring cups is faster and more convenient for them. everyone has their own preferred set of tools.

This is my biggest one. The rest of my family, unless doing one of my recipes I've done in weight, use the volume tools. ANd rarely are they back in any orderly fashion, so I prefer to work from weight, my scale lives in the same place, and I can find it. It works quicker, less clean up, and I have the accuracy I value in case I want to perfectly repeat something.

When it comes to things like rubs and spice blends, there's always the chance that even with metric weight, there will be deviation from batch to batch just because the herbs and spices can fluctuate in their potency based on many factors. I've bought garlic from the same source and had one have more heat than the next. I remember in the restaurant I worked for, the owner got a different garlic once, and it was 3x hotter than our usual, so we had to adjust the recipes to account for it.

[Breadhead]

mhalbrook

If you notice in a recent comment from Meathead he said his first mission was to get everyone following his instruction and information to use temperature thermometers. He has been extremely successful at accomplishing that. Then in the next sentence he said his next mission is to get everyone to use scales. I'll bet you in a year or 2 Pit members will understand measuring by weight is more accurate, easier, faster and less messy.

It will be fun observing this slow transition.

[Usernamevalid]

I wouldn't take that bet on a bet, mostly because a very large group of people around here will do what Meathead says just because he said it.

[Breadhead]

I'm one of the ones that does what he recommends and have done it for about 4 years.

That's why I'm a much better backyard grill master today.

[The Burn]

Not to be difficult or a smartass, but how is it faster and easier using a scale and weights? I understand the accuracy (and moving quickly with scoops can be messy). Perhaps what I'm really asking is what is the measuring process, using my flat digital scale?