Scaling spices, salt, yeast, etc

[John Hovell]

Fellow vegtablers,

I have come across a myth that has become tantalizingly difficult to either dispel or prove, but has much empirical and anecdotal evidence behind it: namely that when scaling recipes certain ingredients such as spices, salt, yeast and some herbs do not scale linearly. Typically the relationship for spices, yeast and salt is that when scaling up less should be used and for herbs, more.

As I am at work, I do not have my McGee tome "On Food and Cooking" otherwise I'd refer to it, and my coworker who scaled up his recipe for today's lunch potluck - with less than satisfactory results - is curious for an answer (as are my other coworkers who had to politely try to eat as much as they could).

I am looking for a SCIENTIFIC explanation that directly confronts this phenomenon, or a reason why it is in fact a myth. The internets is full of pseudo-scientific hand-waving and side-stepping of the issue with strange theories of volume-to-surface area ratios (for salt, really?), trying to blame inaccurate cooks' measures (would not yield consistent results), variability of hotness in spices (true, but missing the point), etc. Maybe the best explanation for spices is that when sizing up recipes cooking time often increases due to the fixed output nature of a home stove or oven and as a result spices gain potency with longer cooking times. Of course this does not explain salt, though yeast maybe could be explained by something similar but only if it isn't kept at a uniform temperature.

Thoughts? Clues? I humbly beseech you for help in illuminating an explanation for this troubling kitchen paradox.

Yours,

John

[Monica/SongYi Lee]

Scaling down usually has more problems than scaling up since you might be scaling down a recipe but using the same size pot or pan and using the same cooking temperature. Bigger pot, less food, means quicker water evaporation and saltier tasting food (you questioned the volume to surface area change that might effect the saltiness).

Baking is a totally different animal (since usually baking pans only come in certain sizes and recipes are typically developed for those standardized sizes), but with regular old stove top cooking scaling up should not be a problem as long as the pan/pot sizes are also scaled up.

Garlic is an interesting ingredient since it actually gets more potent the more you let it sit and the more you chop it up so if you chop it with a knife, it will inevitably become more potent with each time the knife cut or smashes it. Non lineal garlic scaling might make sense.

Honestly, a lot of people are not good at cooking and don't bother to check on their food throughout the cooking process. Or, if they're like me they often just screw up the math.

Monica

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[Kate El-Bizri]

With scaling up, I just put in the original amounts and add while tasting until it tastes right. 

With scaling down, I add half of what they say and then add little bits more while tasting until it tastes right.

The best cooks I know don't even bother with measurements. They just add as they see fit as a more organic, artful process. 

Of course, as Monica pointed out, this can be problematic with baking as it's more "chemistry" and less "art".

[Samara]

Cooking is art, baking is science.  I must admit I know nothing of the scale up/down issue, because I am one of those cooks who rarely measures.  I would love to know the answer, however, because the science is intriguing.  The size of the pan issue is one I never considered.

--Samara

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From: Kate El-Bizri <k.el...@gmail.com>
To: vegt...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, June 7, 2012 7:07 PM
Subject: Re: Scaling spices, salt, yeast, etc