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How to Choose and Buy Kitchen Scales

Here are some hints and tips on some of the things to consider when choosing and buying kitchen scales:

Weight Limit

Think about the quantity of ingredients that you are likely to want to weigh, and check the product description of any model of kitchen scales that you are considering, to ensure that the maximum weight limit will be sufficient for your needs.

Accuracy of Scales

Electronic kitchen scales differ in the accuracy to which they can weigh, so you will need to check the product descriptions to ensure that the weighing increments used are suitable. If you are looking for supremely accurate scales, make sure that the scales you choose can weigh less than an ounce accurately.

Weight Display

Most sets of kitchen scales on the market today have digital displays. This helps to take away the guesswork out of weighing, which is important when baking. However, if you don’t like digital displays, you can still find older style sets of scales with dials and you can also buy talking scales, which are ideal if you have difficulty reading digital displays.

Weighing Base

It’s also worth ensuring that your kitchen scales have a wide enough weighing base to place a bowl on to if the need arises. If you’re likely to be weighing a lot of ingredients and cooking complex dishes, it’s worth investing in a set of scales with a flavour carry-over resistant weighing platform so that the taste of a previous ingredient doesn’t affect the flavour of the next ingredient weighed.

Nutritional Analysis

Kitchen scales are now so technologically advanced that some models, such as the Salter 1400 Nutritional Scale, can even calculate the nutritional value of your food, providing breakdowns of the amount of calories, carbohydrate, fat, protein and fibre in the ingredients that you are weighing. These types of kitchen scales are ideal if you are (or want to be) health-conscious!

Style of Kitchen Scales

There are many different types of kitchen scales on the market, so you should be able to find one that looks right in your kitchen, whether you prefer modern appliances or more traditional retro designs. It’s worth considering where you will keep your scales, as if you want to leave them out on a worktop you will choose a style that will match your other kitchen appliances.

Warranty

Make sure that you are happy with the length of time that your chosen set of scales is guaranteed for before buying, as warranties can vary between brands and models.

Price

Try to have a clear idea of the amount of money that you are prepared to spend on a new set of kitchen scales and stick to your budget. You can get some great deals by shopping around, particularly online. Visit our Where to Buy section for details of some of the best sites to visit.

Further Information

If you want to buy kitchen scales, you can find out more about some of the top online suppliers, including details of their delivery times and postage and packaging costs, in our Where to Buy section.

You can find out about specific brands and models of kitchen scales in our Brands and Top Models sections.

You can learn more about other types of kitchen appliance in our Types section.