Scaling up

[ped]

Has anyone had the experience of scaling up a recipe and finding that an ingredient starts to overwhelm the overall flavour of the original recipe, is it just a case of testing/tasting until the balance is found or is there some sort of rule of thumb that one can use?Just as an example, I like the hint of cloves in some recipes but I'm pretty sure that if I added the equal proportion to a scaled up version the cloves would be far too much, or am I wrong?

[wheels]

Yes, it's a major problem when altering the size of small brine cures. Unfortunately, I have no answer for it.

Phil

[vagreys]

The book "Food for Fifty" has a really good discussion about the challenges of scaling. No method is perfect - spices and liquids will gradually become unbalanced. The percentage by weight method keeps me closest to my recipes, because the ingredients remain in relative proportion. Multiplying volumes is the least accurate, in my experience, particularly where liquids are concerned.

[ped]

So bottom line, trial and error.

[JerBear]

I avoid using volume whenever possible, weights the only way to fly. I've taken a recipe originally developed for 10 lbs and make 127 without any issue....

[tommix]

Calculating by percentages is the only way to go, this is the percentage calculator that I use and have never had any problems.
http://www.math.com/students/calculator ... ercent.htm

[Thewitt]

Scaling by weight is the easiest way to go. Though I've had to modify a couple of recipes when making 200k batches, in general they scale just fine by weight.

[wheels]

Are we talking cures, or sausages?

I've never had any problem with sausage, but the spicing of cures can be a bit of a problem when you scale them, particularly with a 2:1 meat:brine equilibrium cure. If you double the spice for twice the weight of meat, you can end up with over-spiced meat.

Phil

[DiggingDogFarm]

FWIW, here's a recipe template the I put together which has 3 forms of scaling....a multiplier, key ingredient (meat) quantity and baker's percents.....

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/1381 ... alculators