September 4, 2024 - 1:12pm
Excel spreadsheet to make your own bread formulas
Hello everyone, I'm a new member. I was going through some of the blog posts and I came across a number that spoke about an article printed in The Bread Lines magazine of The Bread Bakers Guild of America. They describe a standardized calculator to make our lives easier when calculating weights and percentages of ingredients. Well I put it together and it's yours free, just follow the link in the most current blog update. I hope you find it helpful
If you find errors email me at pummarola.sanmichele@gmail.com and I'll correct them.
TonyP
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and share the link here for anyone interested in accessing it.
Yippee
I haven't tried it but usually systems will accept a zip file. Just zip your excel file and see if it gets accepted.
TomP
Here is the link to the latest Excel file. In this version I've added a sheet to calculate the required water temperature to reach a final dough temperature.
BBGA Bread Calc v2.xlsx
Let me know of any issues.
TonyP
This is very helpful and I've already started using it to keep track of my formulas. Thanks for making something so user-friendly.
I wanted to ask if there was a way of deleting/hiding one of the two pre-fermented sections? Most of my breads will only use one type, i.e. sourdough or poolish, so being able to delete a couple of columns will make it even easier to use.
LL
In this update BBGA Bread Calc v2.3
The updated file is now a macro enabled file. You will have to enable macros when you open it or it won't work properly. These are the changes:
1. The CALCULATOR sheet includes a section for SOAKER and two sections for PRE-FERMENTS. Not every bread formula uses soakers or multiple pre-ferments; so, I have added checkboxes to simplify the look of the calculator by hiding the SOAKER section and hiding one of the PRE-FERMENT sections.
2. Many times we wish we had a stronger flour to make our bread. Well, by adding Vital Wheat Gluten we can increase the protein level of the flour. I've added a calculator - PROTEIN LEVELS - that allows you to calculate how much Vital Wheat Gluten to add to your flour to achieve a particular protein level of the final flour mix.
3. It is well known that dough temperature is very important to the success of the proofing. I've added a calculator - DOUGH TEMP - that takes into consideration the accepted factors in calculating the desired dough temperature. You can use default values for Mixer Friction to arrive at the Required Water Temp. Otherwise you can use the calc on the right hand side to calculate the Friction Factor for your mixer or when hand kneading. You can then update the DROPDOWN DATA sheet with those values and they will then become your default values.
Feed back appreciated.
TonyP
Please open the file on your desktop and enable macros, otherwise the calculators will not work properly. Save it as your own file name with a .xlsm extension.
TonyP
This is incredibly useful! I shall start using this updated version and let you know how it goes.
Really appreciate your work here.
-Lin
A new update is available; BBGA Bread Calc v3
There are many changes to the workbook, some of which are at the request of community members such as Lin. Here are the highlights:
I hope you find this version even more useful.
TonyP
These are all really useful changes. Appreciate it and thanks again for sharing!
P.S. Would love to see some of your breads!
-Lin
Hi Tony,
Thanks again for your revised spreadsheet - the "hide" function is incredibly helpful! I also appreciate the VWG function, which I will play around with when I do get my hands on that.
I did want to ask if there was a simple way for me to add ingredients, such as agave syrup, or nuts that I don't soak? Obviously, please don't bother if you're busy with other things; what you have given here is already incredibly helpful!
Best, Lin