What's the best digital food scale?

I am ready to buy a digital food scale and I'm interested to hear which ones you have and what's good about them, etc. I'm tired of my inconsistent anolog one. Do most of the digitals have a "calibrate to zero" setting so when I put a bowl on it, it will start from zero?

Thanks...

[EdBakesBread]

OXO for me.

You can pull the readout away from the base to accommodate large bowls, it tares, it converts between lbs/grams/kg...

Get the one that goes to 11 lbs from Amazon and never look back.

[piano boy]

I've been through a half dozen scales and highly recommend My Weigh (www.myweigh.com). It has all the basic functions such as taring to 0.

Why it is better than the rest:

Accuracy. As a pastry chef it is paramount especially in small volume recipes. These scales are more accurate than any other I've used.

Small details. There is nothing worse than a scale that shuts off just as you're about to add ingredients. My Weigh don't automatically toggle off for twice as long as most other scales.

Return policy. No questions asked, if something goes wrong they either fix it or send you a new one free of charge. After much use, my first one lost the last digit on the screen. Sent it in, within a week had a brand new one. And I'm in Canada, normally returns are a complete hassle.

I know I sound like a sales rep for the company but I wouldn't use anything else.

[Politeness]

piano boy: "I've been through a half dozen scales and highly recommend My Weigh"

There are a lot of items that I would buy at Amazon or the local kitchen supply store, and upon which I would rely upon the advice of people like you and me on a forum such as this one. (I would rely upon your advice more than mine, because you have been through a half dozen or more scales, which is at leaast five more than I have.)

However, were I shopping for for something as specialized as small scales, I would turn first to a specialized site that carries no other products and that carries several competing lines of scales at various price points. A place like http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/ in other words. (Old Will Knott appears to carry very nearly the full line of the My Weigh scales that you favor.)

[honeybea]

I'm with grampart and piano boy... My Weigh from oldwillknotscales.com.Works like a dream, great price, love it.
I got the extra plug in cord, but I never use it.

[dave_c]

I found a digital postal scale on clearance at a chain office supply store for $10.
5 pound capacity.
Can measure in pounds/ounces or kg/grams.
Tare button to re-zero the scale.

Pros -
seems pretty accurate and consistent. Also, most recipes you really don't need to be accurate to the gram.

Can measure ingredients in grams which makes it easier to halve or double a recipe.

Cons -
if it matters, it's not a stylish looking, which is not a factor for me.

[grampart]

I've been using a MyWeigh for the last few years. It does everything I need it to do and was priced right at http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-...

[bushwickgirl]

I bought this one, in stylish black, inexpensive, which was important to me, wider definitely chrome platform, 11 lb capacity, large LCD reading, instant change lbs to grams to oz weighing mode and tare options, auto shut off after 3 minutes, which is a very important feature, very accurate, no special batteries, uses two AAA, stores unpright with batteries removed, or flat in a drawer. I've had no problems with this scale, regardless of what a few amazon reviewers wrote; changed my life in good ways:

http://www.amazon.com/Ozeri-Digital-K...?

From my research before buying, many brands offer the same features, but the important things to look for are the tare feature, grams to oz weigh mode, weighing capacity, more lbs being better, and a longer auto shut off timing. Mainstream batteries are better than a special battery as well.

Whether you want something heavy duty for more $$ or a basic $ model that will do the job from day to day, you have lots of options.

My scale is a Salter, which I got from the King Arthur catalogue a few years ago. It has all the features everyone else is talking about but it also weighs ingredients up to 11 lbs, which I find very useful, and - most important of all - it has a long automatic shut-off time, so when you've carefully weighed almost all of your ingredients, then realize you've forgotten something and go to get it, you won't come back and find all your work gone for naught and the scale turned off.

Another vote for Salter. I have the smallish, plate-shaped model that works well in my space-starved` kitchen. Stores in a drawer and saves counter real estate.

[johnny_boy]

I bought a scale at Amazon called EatSmart. Have had it for about a year and it seems very durable and has performed admirable. And I think it was under $30 so I was happy with the deal. Almost bought the OXO but it was $50.

http://www.amazon.com/EatSmart-Precis...

I just recently bought my scale from Bodum - it was on sale 1/2 price from somewhere $60ish. Very stylish, glass surface scale and very small. You can switch from metric to English units. It has an easy one button touch reset to zero and automatic shutoff after idling. I love it. Not sure they have it online, I bought it at their NY store.

I have a digital postal scale that I bought at Staples Office Supply. It was about half the cost of the ones marketed for cooking. It will weigh up to 5 lbs., ounces or grams, and has the "tare" function. I find that it works very well.

I have a Salter digital that we got at Williams Sonoma a few years back. It, too, has the zero function, which is also great if you are doing a recipe (like a CI bread recipe) that has everything in weights: you can put the bowl on, zero, add the flour, zero, add the next ingredient, etc. It also switches from pounds to grams, as well as fluid ounces and milliliters. I think it was around $60, and I've never changed the batteries.

Ah, found it! Ours is like the one below, but stainless. One nice feature is that the plate that you put the food on for weighing comes off for easy cleaning.

Link: http://www.cutleryandmore.com/details...

That's what I have...and I LOVE it.
It's so great for baking, as you never have to pull out the measuring cups. You can weigh all the dry ingredients AND the wet ones.
It zeroes huge amounts...I've put large heavy pans on it, and it handles these weights just fine.

How do you convert your recipes? Do you just keep a conversion table somewhere, do you sit down with every recipe before cooking, etc?

No...I don't do it with everything, as it would take more time to convert all the measurments than it would to wash the measuring cups, but I'm finding that so many recipes provide weights these days. Cookbooks are starting to realize that people will weigh things if they put the weights and that the results are much more consistent.

I have some cookbooks / recipes that give weights, like Baking Illustrated, or the Alton Brown recipes from Food TV.

[coll]

I was given this Salter scale as a gift, and it is supposed to be good up to 11 lbs. However it seems anything over a lb or so is off by at least 6 oz. At first I thought all my butchers were ripping me off, then I realized it was the stupid scale. But it looks good, which is probably why the gift giver bought it.
http://www.cutleryandmore.com/salter/...

I just recently bought the Soehnle Myra Digital Food Scale and I've been really happy with it. I got it for very cheap (I think around $20) at a Amazon Friday Sale a month or so ago.

The pros:
It's very small and not very wide (so easy to store)
It switches from oz to gram easiily
Not expensive
Does have tare option (putting measurements back to 0)

The cons:
It has a fairly low weight limit, I've read that it's about 2 lbs? So if you need to measure alot of heavy items, or use heavy bowls, this wouldn't be good. So far, I haven't had any problems with the weight limit (but I don't make bread and other heavy items).

Hope this was helpful!

Link: http://virtualfrolic.blogspot.com/

I have a Soehnle too. Got it at Sur La Table 4-5 years ago. Have not had to change the batteries yet. Mine will weigh up to 4lbs.6 oz, switches easily from grams to oz. also is very compact and also has the tare function. We like it alot. It might have been about $65.00

I bought a digital postal scale at Costco (in Canada) for about $26 a couple of years ago. It weighs up to about 2 lbs., can be reset to zero to eliminate the weight of the container, and can read out in either grams to ounces. I love it - use it at least once ever day and haven't had to change batteries yet.