Customer Reviews

Escali Pana V136, Volume Measuring Scale

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I own two of these; one for at home and I keep one at my son's restaurant for when I bake. They are quite accurate and you would be amazed at how inaccurate your measuring cups and spoons are! Did you know that 1 cup of sugar is 7 ounces?! There is a list of foods that are numbered that come with it and all you do is put in a number - 58 is butter or cream - set volume or lbs./ounces/grams and put in your ingredients. You can keep adding more to it by clearing the number, type in the new ingredient number, tare the weight and keep going. This is for liquid or dry and you can do both in the same bowl. I set my filled cake pans or bread pans on it to make sure that I have equal amounts in each pan. Print out a couple of the lists and have them around; mine get pretty messy!
I did have trouble with one of them once; the number 9 wouldn't come up so I called them and I sent it back in the box (so keep it and the insides that it comes in), and they sent me a new one right away.

To those who own this scale and are happy with it, I mean no offense. I hope you will understand that this is intended as constructive criticism of a product which has potential, but badly needs to be updated and improved.

To those who have not yet jumped off of that cliff, think twice about the dubious return on investment that this poorly implemented device represents. The lack of a user friendly interface, and the failure to provide a text labeled ingredient database, make this product an unwieldy anachronism. Here is what I mean:

What is simpler, remembering what a cup of flour weighs, or remembering a cryptic numeric code you have to punch into the scale to measure flour?

What is easier, looking up the weight of an ingredient, or looking up an abstract numeric code ?

If you remember the numeric code for an ingredient, you can only measure the volume on this expensive special scale.

If you remember the unit weight of an ingredient, you can measure the volume on ANY scale, even the $24 model, or your next door neighbor's scale, or mom's old mechanical scale.

If you have an inexpensive scale you can determine the volume of an ingredient just by weighing it.

If you have this expensive scale you can determine the volume of an ingredient by looking around to find your special laminated card, looking up the secret code (if it is on the list of approved ingredients), entering the code into the scale, and THEN weighing it.

Unless the manufacturer updates this scale to allow predictive entry of ingredient names, user defined ingredients, conversion table updates, and a generally more modern user interface, I would suggest you save some money and buy the cheap scale. You can easily find a weight to volume conversion chart on the Internet, print it out, laminate it, and save yourself from spending three times as much money as you should have, to get a convenience feature which really isn't all that convenient. (You can use that chart you made with ANY scale !)

I really hope that the manufacturer will get a clue and update this scale to current levels of user interface technology. This would have been a great product in the mid-1980's, but given the current state of the art, it is a sad failure.

I have never liked the process of spooning out and leveling flour in measuring cups; it's messy and time-consuming, but necessary to get an accurate measurement for baking. With this scale, you push the volume button, enter in the number of the ingredient on the numeric keypad, watch the display until you get the correct number of cups or tablespoons, etc.Push the tare button and add your next ingredient. I just made a batch of muffins and didn't have to measure out anything by hand except the spices. Great product!!

I bought this to replace an older analog scale that had become tedious to use. I find I can use this to supplant a variety of other measuring spoons and cups. The mixing bowl can tared and used to contain the ingredients as they are measured by volume. It is easy to clean and the packing that comes in the box makes a great dust cover. I find I use it more than I thought I might.

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!

love this scale... the best scale in the market.. very accurate and easy to use.
thank you.

This scale replaces my expensive Soehnle scale which a cheap piece of plastic broke inside and made the scale unusable. I've been looking for a scale that would measure volume since so many recipes don't give weight measurements for common things like flour sugar, etc. Using weight means you get consistent results and don't have to dirty up a measuring cup. Measuring flour, honey or brown sugar can be up to interpretation as to how you measure: sifted, packed? With liquids you have to eye the cup to see if you've met the level. Scales like this eliminate the problem. You do have to look up the food being measure and then enter the code. They give you a nicely plastic-coated card, I was afraid I'd loose it, but I haven't yet after a year.

It works great and has been very accurate. It seems to be well built and fairly easy to clean. I like the battery life and the easy way to enter way to tare and change units. It's great because it has lb./oz as well as just oz and metric. I only use grams to measure, but it's nice to be able to easily switch for postage.

Overall it's a great scale for the price and would highly recommend it.

I have owned several scales in my day and this is by far the best one. I really appreciate that it can be set to stay in straight ounces verses converting to lbs. plus ounces after reaching 1 lb (16 oz) like my old scale did. This scale is very user friendly. I like the looks of it too!
We use this scale daily. I'm surprised at how much I'm finding myself using the laminated list.
Love it~!
I would highly recommend!

Very nice design. I'm impressed that although this scale has some fairly sophisticated features, it is still simple to use. You press just one button to get a basic weight measurement. Just another press and you can use the tare feature. Changing units is just a press of a very obvious button. The volume function (a very handy feature) doesn't get in the way of the simpler functions. As a designer myself, I can appreciate the thought that went into this product. I get annoyed when I see a product that is overly complicated and requires a user's manual to do the simplest thing. This produce was designed properly for easy use in the kitchen.

This is a great little scale. It has a volume measuring option especially for baking. It is light weight,easily cleaned and seems very accurate. The tare weight is easily set. The scale turns itself off to save battery life. I am very happy with this scale.