Choosing a Kitchen Scale: What Actually Matters
A practical guide to digital kitchen scales: capacity, precision, the tare button, units and the features worth paying for.
A digital kitchen scale is one of the cheapest upgrades for a home baker, and a basic one does the job well. Here is what to look for and what to ignore.
The features that matter
A tare button
Tare resets the display to zero with something already on the scale. It is what lets you weigh straight into a bowl, then zero again and add the next ingredient. Every decent digital scale has one; make sure it responds quickly.
1 g precision
Most kitchen scales read in 1 g steps, which is right for flour, sugar, butter and liquids. Avoid scales that only read in 2 g or 5 g steps.
Enough capacity
Look for a maximum of at least 5 kg (about 11 lb). That is enough to weigh a heavy mixing bowl plus a full batch of dough, which is where smaller scales run out.
Grams and ounces
Being able to switch between grams and ounces is useful for older American recipes that give weights in ounces. Grams are more precise for baking, so use them where you can.
A readable display
A large bowl can hide the display. Scales with the display on a front panel, or a platform wider than your bowl, are easier to read.
Nice to have
- Auto-off delay you can adjust or disable. Some scales switch off after a minute or two, which is annoying mid-recipe.
- Rechargeable battery. Saves buying batteries.
- A flat, wipeable surface. Easier to clean than buttons with gaps.
What to skip
- Milliliter modes. Many scales offer a "ml" setting. It simply assumes everything weighs the same as water, so it is accurate for water and close for milk, but wrong for oil, honey or anything else.
- App-connected and nutrition scales. Fine if you want them, but they do not make baking more accurate.
- Mechanical (dial) scales. Harder to read precisely and no tare button.
A second, small scale for tiny amounts
For bread bakers working with yeast and salt, or anyone measuring small quantities of spices, a small pocket scale that reads to 0.1 g is a useful companion. Most kitchen scales are not accurate for amounts under a few grams.
Checking your scale
To check a scale is accurate, weigh something with a known weight. A US nickel weighs 5 g, so ten nickels should read 50 g. Or pour water into a container on the scale: 100 ml of water should weigh 100 g, though this depends on how accurate your measuring jug is.
Getting started
Once you have a scale, use the charts on this site to convert your recipes. Our guide on converting a recipe to grams walks through the process, and why bake by weight explains what you gain.