Forum: lifehacks.stackexchange.com
Tags: <food>
Title: How do I easily divide dough into thirds?
Question: I occasionally find myself with a lump of dough which I want to divide into three equally sized pieces (like for making 3 pizza bases). I could weigh it but it typically means getting the scales out and dirty and having to cut pieces off and re-knead them into the dough. Eye-balling kinda works but sometimes I'm a fair bit off.  So I was wondering if there is a nice technique which doesn't require additional tools like a scale to divide a lump of dough into three equally sized pieces?

Answers:
sents: text: Another trick: make an evenly roll, lay it down in a S-form and push it together.
text: It works quite well after a bit of practice.
text: Main advantage: you can add more "loops" to make 4, 5, and more parts.
text: The roll needs to be thinner and thinner, so there is some natural limit to it
text: but even I with my all-thumbs hands can manage up to 7.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/10276/deamentiaemundi
score: 33
sents: text: You could measure it out using your hand.
text: Roll out the dough to be close to the width of three hands, and then cut each piece at the width of your hand.
text: It is fairly easy to make an even roll, and the width of your hand is fairly constant, so that should make for three closely sized lumps of dough.
text: Added: Another variant using a measuring trick, is to first make an even roll, then use the tip of your digits(/fingers) not including the thumb to make a line of dots along the length of the roll.
text: Then you can count the dots and divide by three.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/4490/holroy
score: 19
sents: text: Why not using the simple fact that cos(60°)
text: = 1/2 ?
text: Put your dough in the form of a circle, make sure you know the centre point.
text: From there you draw a horizontal line to the right, and in the middle of that line, you draw a perpendicular line up and down.
text: Like this, you find two points, one above and one beneath.
text: Together with the outmost left point of your circle, this forms the edges of the third parts you are looking for
text: (I'm trying to find out how to attach a picture to this answer)
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/10307/Dominique
score: 11
sents: text: Here's an old math trick that makes dividing dough into thirds easy.
text: Flatten your dough into a bit of a disk and mark the center point as a reference.
text: Find a convenient object with an "edge" that is slightly larger than the radius of your dough and flatten your dough a bit further until it is about that size.
text: (You can use a ruler, but I find an index card or a spatula edge to be about right)
text: Using that edge as a reference, you can "walk" the outside of the circle, marking off equal lengths as you go.
text: When you're done, you will find six equally-spaced marks along the ouside of your dough which will form the points of a perfect hexagon.
text: Cutting from the center of your dough to every other point you made should divide the dough into equal thirds.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/80/Robert Cartaino
score: 8
sents: text: Try fashioning an equilateral (all 3 sides of the same lenght) triangle with the dough.
text: Make sure it is level (height needs to be uniform).
text: Then, simply cut the dough in half from each angle of the triangle (so 3 cuts).
text: You'll get 6 pieces of equal mass.
text: Add these pieces 2 by two and you get 3 pieces of equal mass.
text: [EDIT, since it was requested in the comments
text: , here's a little addendum : if you don't want 6 pieces, simply don't make cuts all the way through in length.
text: Stop cutting at 2/3 of the length between the corner and the opposing side of the triangle (see picture).
text: You really don't need to be accurate there.]
text: The solution doesn't remove the need to be accurate, but makes being accurate easier (the geometrical form will favor accuracy, as it is more visual than simply guessing the size of each piece).
text: Choose any other geometrical form if you need to make more pieces (a square for 4 pieces, etc...)
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/10285/takeshi2010
score: 7
sents: text: Start with a square.
text: Divide it into four sub-squares.
text: Set aside three of the sub-squares.
text: Divide the remaining sub-square into four sub-sub-squares.
text: Add one sub-sub-square to each of the three intact sub-squares.
text: Divide the remaining sub-sub-square into four sub^N-squares.
text: Continue the process until one of the remaining sub^N-squares is so small that you don't care if it isn't perfectly divided into thirds.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/10297/answer96-
score: 5
sents: text: Assuming that you can split the dough in half accurately: Split the dough into quarters in three steps.
text: Save three doughs.
text: Repeat step 1 with the leftover piece.
text: Add a new piece to each saved dough.
text: Repeat step 2 until you feel comfortable with splitting the remaining piece in three.
text: Add the pieces to your doughs.
text: You will have three equally sized doughs within your margin of error.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/12714/ErikJ
score: 1
sents: text: Divide to three pieces arbitrarily, then just cut away and eat slices from the currently biggest part until all three pieces are equal.
answer_details: author: lifehacks.stackexchange.com/users/10295/anonymous
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
There are many tricks to help divide dough into even thirds. One simple trick involves rolling up the dough and fashioning an S-shape which you then push together to create three even lengths. Other more advanced methods involve fashioning a triangle and cutting through the centre from the points or using the radius to mark out a hexagon which would then be cut into even thirds or sixths by cutting through the centre. You could also roll out the dough to be three hands wide and then use your hand to measure the thirds. Alternatively, you could split the dough into quarters, set three pieces to one side and then repeat with the remaining piece until you feel comfortable splitting the piece into three.
The options are to make an S-shape, squash into lines and divide, measure out in hand widths, make a circle and divide into six then double up, divide into quarters and split one of the quarters between the other three or make an equal triangle and cut in half from each angle to get sixths and then double up the sixths.