How many in a baker's gross?
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2019 4:49 pm
Well here it is - the thread you've all been waiting for. I don't think I need to explain the options.
A group for contestants and lovers of the Channel 4 game show 'Countdown'.
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This is interesting, I must admit I didn't know the origin of the phrase. But it must have been coined in the days of estimating ingredients, surely? Were early weighing scales really that inaccurate? When the phrase originated, all scales would have been simple mechanical balances, using metal weights on one side and the weighed ingredients on the other. The weights don't suddenly change and surely the balances can't have been that inaccurate, can they? Certainly not 8.33% inaccurate, otherwise why even bother with them?David Williams wrote: ↑Fri Jul 12, 2019 9:32 pm There are severe penalties for selling underweight bread. Your scales are not consistent. So for an order of 12 loaves you throw in an extra 8.33% which gives you what you deem to be a decent confidence level of being within the law. For an order of 144 loaves, for that level of confidence you do not have to throw in as much as 12 extra loaves, but I've long since forgotten how to work out the answer.
This implies that it's not a whole extra loaf or nothing. They could have put in a small bit of extra bread, but for a dozen, they explicitly chose a whole extra loaf. So maybe 8.33% is the magic number after all, and the answer is 156.To protect themselves bakers would add (throw in) a small piece of bread to each order, called the 'in-bread' to ensure they could not be accused of short measure. For large orders of 12 loaves this would be a whole extra loaf.