Forum: cooking.stackexchange.com
Tags: <baking><bread>
Title: How many kilos of bread can I produce with one kilo of flour?
Question: I wish to calculate how economic a breadmaker is compared to store bought bread. Does anyone know how many kilos of bread can be made from one kilogram of flour?  To make it simple, let's say generic white bread and basic simple white bread.

Answers:
sents: text: In my experience, it doesn't really save money, but it's still worth it because it's fresh and better than store-bought at the same price.
text: For me, 1kg of all purpose flour yields 1.6kg of bread (as two loaves).
text: Each 13x4x4"
text: (Pullman) loaf weighs about 800 grams after cooling and yields between 24-30 slices depending on thickness.
text: The cost per loaf is under $1.00, and includes all ingredients, tax, and electric for mixing/baking/slicing.
text: I've made a few hundred loaves based on variations of this formula: % grams cost cals fat protein sugar sodiumall purpose flour 100
text: 500 0.417 1833 0 50 17 0 instant yeast 0.8 4 0.067 16 0 0 0 3 nonfat dry milk 4 20 0.203 70 0 7 10 109 canola oil
text: 10 50 0.072 429 50 0 0 0
text: sugar
text: 4 20 0.019 75 0 0 20 0 salt 2 10 0.006 0 0 0 0 3933 water 56 280 0.000 0 0 0 0 0 dough total 176.8 884 $0.783 2422 50 57 47 4045 To be clear, I no longer use a bread machine.
text: My answer focused more on how much bread can be made with 1kg flour.
text: The Pullman loaf pan was $25, and the electric knife was $20.
text: So for 300 loaves, that adds 15 cents per loaf.
text: The mixer and oven are used for other things besides bread, so I don't really consider them in the overall cost per loaf.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 19
sents: text: It would depend greatly on the recipe used.
text: However, for example, this recipe from Jamie Oliver for "Basic Bread" yields 1 loaf of bread and utilizes 1kg of flour.
text: Additionally if you are comparing for economic reasons, you'd also need to take into account the cost for yeast, salt and any enrichments (egg, sugar, etc as specified by recipe).
text: The average loaf of store bought bread weighs either 16oz or 24oz here in the US which would be 453.6g or 680.4g respectively.
text: I know that until 2008 bread in the UK was required by law to be sold in specified units so they were commonly sold in 400g and 800g sizes.
text: Most of my bread books specify that on average bread dough loses 10-20% of weight during baking/cooling.
text: So some "back of napkin" math gives us 1kg flour =
text: 1000
text: g 625ml H20 =
text: 625g 21-30g yeast =
text: 25g
text: (average) 2 tbsp sugar =
text: 30g 1 tbsp salt = 15g Total dough weight = 1695
text: g 1695 - 169.5 = 1525.5g (10% loss during cooking)
text: 1695 -339
text: = 1356g (20% loss during cooking)
text: (1525.5 +
text: 1356)/2 = 1440.75g average cooked weight.
text: So we can estimate that the average weight of a cooked loaf of bread from this recipe would be 1.44kg.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/9799/djmadscribbler
score: 12
sents: text: Basic bread requires flour, water, salt and yeast (nothing more).
text: The salt and yeast contribution to the weight is negligible.
text: Water, in my experience, shall be - before cooking - about 70% in weight with respect to flour; the actual quantity depends mainly on the kind of flour, but 70% is a reasonable average estimate.
text: Loss of total weight during cooking is due to water evaporation and can be estimated between 10% and 20%; the bread will anyway continue to loose water even after it reaches room temperature, but this is slow.
text: In conclusion I would say, for example:
text: 1 kg of flour + 0.7 kg of water (I use kg, I am Italian) =
text: >
text: 1.7 kg dough 1.7 - 1.7*15% kg =
text: > 1.445 kg
text: In Italy flour can be found for sale at less than 0.50 €/kg,yeast (for 1 kg of flour) 0.15 €, water, salt, electric power: negligible cost; Total 0.65 €
text: /1.445 kg =
text: 0.45 €/kg =
text: 0.45 €
text: /kg; In comparison 1 kg of bought basic bread is around 2.5 to 4 €/kg.
text: If you do not take into account oven, etc and the work needed , in Italy it is very convenient to make it by yourself!
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42699/Ginsi
score: 3
sents: text: flour/water : 100:50 - 100:65 as you like the dough -> 1kg flour
text: : 1,5kg -1,65kg dough.
text: You have 10% loss of weight by backing.
text: Thats all.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/42685/volker
score: 2
sents: text: Here in the UK, I can use 1/3rd of a 1.5kg bag of strong white bread flour (95p/3=32p) and 1 sachet of dried yeast at 11p to make a loaf for 43p, and that gives me a loaf equivalent to this 800g supermarket sandwich loaf at £1.00.
text: Tastes better, too.
text: So that's better than double, in my experience.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/34545/Steve Cooper
score: 2
sents: text: For me,1 kilo will yield 2 kilograms of bread,,,ex.for 1 kilo I put 700 grams of water,plus the ingredients, here is my example; Marikina bread 1 kgsalt 75 gsugar 155 gshortening 85 gyeast
text: 80gimprover 25geggs
text: 2 fl ounceskimmed milk 15 g water 700 g
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/57289/Jess
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
The price of flour, yeast, salt and other ingredients for a plain white loaf should be below $1.00, and this becomes more affordable when you use a breadmaker and save time and energy. Even at the same price, it may be worth using a breadmaker as a homemade loaf will be better and fresher than a supermarket loaf.
The quantity of bread made from 1kg of flour varies greatly depending on the recipe used. Moreover, the cost of a homemade loaf varies too. Nevertheless, in Italy and the UK it is definitely cheaper than shop bread.