EscaliPana V136 Large Volume Measuring Kitchen/Baking/Cooking Scale, Preprogrammed with Over 150 Ingredients, LCD Digital Display, 13Lb Capacity, Universal, Stainless

I can't say enough good things about this scale. It's by far the best kitchen scale I've ever used or even heard of.It has helped me finally learn to bake properly, and it's truly the secret to my success. Everyone loves my beer cheese bread, chocky cake, and chocky chip cookies. This scale, a KitchenAid stand mixer, and King Arthur Flour are must-haves for any serious home baker, IMHO.Pros:1. My favorite, stand-out feature of this scale is the pre-programmed conversion calculations it can do. By using the included, laminated card (see the pic) to find the product you're using, flour, sugar, milk, etc., it will convert the weight into a volume unit like cups or tablespoons. This is very useful if your recipe only gives volume instead of weight measurements. Good baking really needs accurate measurements.2. It can handle a wide range of weights. From 1 gram increments up to 13 pounds! That's far more than any other scales I've seen. It makes it the only scale one would need in a kitchen, and even around the house.3. It's small, low-profile, and lightweight, making it easy to store out of the way in a drawer or cabinet.4. It's easy to clean with a sealed control panel and a removable, stainless steel platter.5. It's powered by a standard 9 volt battery that lasts a good long time thanks to the auto-off feature.6. The display is easy to read and can show/convert imperial or metric weight units, as well as the volume units mentioned above.7. Made in the U.S., so the company says and it appears to be, which is a good thing, I guess. It's not just some generic rando brand.Cons:None - full stop.Highly recommended. Just get it. You know you want it.

Great product !

This is a fantastic little scale. It's the second one I've bought - after many years of working great, it got dropped. I noticed that the part that broke off because it had been glued on the old model is now screwed in on the new model, so that should increase durability.This scale will automatically convert any recipe to weights with its built-in database of ingredient densities. It's accurate, easy to use, and has a nice high maximum weight. I also love that you can use either pounds and ounces OR total ounces in addition to kg/g. (e.g. 20 oz or 1 lb 4 oz)NOTE: This scale uses a pretty light cup of flour - 4.25 oz. Because the weight of a cup of flour can vary significantly from person to person or author to author (that's why you want to convert to using weights in the first place - much more accurate) if you - or your mom or grandma - are/were a heavy flour weigher - that is, you just dip the measuring cup into the flour without fluffing it first or without sprinkling it into your cup measure, your recipes probably run 5 oz or more per cup of flour, so I would recommend that you NOT use the volume conversion for flour in your old tried and true recipes, but rather, figure out your own, personal weight for a cup of flour and use that. (Only for those old family recipes, though. Use the scale's conversion for everything else in the absence of actual weights, or if the author doesn't specify how they measure their flour. And if they don't... maybe don't use that recipe? Anyone writing recipes these days without giving weights is probably not someone you want to trust with your valuable time and ingredients.)

The ability of this scale to weigh by volume was truly a revelation. I enjoy baking and for a long time used a Salter Aquatronic scale -- weighing is truly the way to go! Still, the majority of recipes are written with volume measurements and this has always posed a problem to me. Unless I wrote all my conversions down - which I did for a few favorite recipes - I had to pull out all usual measuring gadgetry. This scale changed all that. The absolute most number of bowls I might use is two, but 98% of the time I can get away with just using one. Referencing the included laminated chart, you enter an ingredient's corresponding number, measure it out, hit the tare button and keep going. Usually I'll measure out the dry ingredients first, set them aside on some waxed paper, measure out the wet ingredients, then mix everything together in the same bowl.Another unexpected bonus was being able to bake much more accurately. I found out one handblown glass measuring beaker I'd been using was unacceptably off. And of course you will have fewer items to wash. This scale's platform lifts off the base for easy cleaning. I didn't bother to get the AC adapter. My old scale used batteries and I only changed them once in 5 years, so I expect this Escali will have similar power usage. I've been using the scale for about a year now and cannot imagine baking without it.UPDATE (03/25/11): One nice feature about this scale that I forgot to mention is that it stays on for decent amount of time even when there's been no activity. Why is this important? Well, the old Aquatronic scale used to blank out after about 20 seconds, which was frustrating when using the tare function and not having every ingredient at hand. My Escali will wait patiently for me to fetch that forgotten ingredient and not lose its tare brains in the process. Even with the longer display, I still haven't had to replace the batteries. Another tip: if you have a favorite recipe, it's still expeditious to do a volume to weight conversion, so you won't even have to look up the ingredient code. The conversion is really easy to do with this scale: measure the ingredient by volume, then switch the mode to grams/ounces. Just mark it on your recipe once and you're set for life!

I use this scale every time I make bread. I love to weight everything so my bread is more consistent each time. The only thing I wish it would do is also weigh in grams. For small amounts. All in all it works great, is easy to use and seems to be accurate.