Bread Boss

Makes good bread!

My search for something to replace my BBGA-style spreadsheets continues. This app gets the math and method right, but it has an extremely poor UI. It's actually worse than just using a spreadsheet!

The app keeps crashing on me

I've downloaded other apps and concluded that for the price and all the provided features, Bread Boss is worth the price. Although it's not as aesthetic as Rise, it has much more features offered with proper calculations at a much cheaper price. However, there are some things this app can improve on. I took one star away because the app tutorial got me spinning. It made me very confused, and took me a while to figure out how to operate the app. I also wished that there were explanations on how the calculations were made because the percentages made me very confused and I had to hand calculate to figure out the math. The different stages were also a bit confusing because different terminology was being used. For example, what is usually referred to as a fed and active starter or levain is called "sourdough" in the app. Perhaps this should be explained (maybe a page for vocabs?). I took another star away because it doesn't give me the option to define my starter's hydration. The app makes the starter, or sourdough, a stiff starter at 50% hydration. I wish that users can changes their starter's hydration. Another thing about starter is that the app doesn't let you adjust how much starter you have, how much you fed it, and how much you used. If you enter that you fed your 15g starter 40g flour and 40g water, the app automatically assumes you uses 80g of starter although you could use less or more. Overall, it is a really nice and feature-full app, but the different functions and terminologies needs to be explain better.

I recently purchased this app and quickly found a few items that would enhance the ease of use. I am use to using Excel for all my recipe calculations. First, since it is database driven, an extensive list of baking ingredients available by drop down would make it much easier to input new recipes. Now, you have to add each ingredient separately, unless you copy another recipe. Secondly, the ability to sort or list the ingredients in a recipe in the order desired. When I bake bread, I normally follow a set list of ingredients in the order I want to include them into the mix. At present, the app list them in the order it wants and I find that a bit irritating, not intuitive and prone to miss an ingredient. Third, have the ability to turn off all the extra bells and whistles, notices, explanations and other stuff that is on the page. A user should be able to setup the page in sections by turning a section on or off. For instance, I don’t need the alarm section on the recipe page unless I’m going to use them. Forth, there are several processes in the app that are not very user friendly or intuitive. They work, but until you figure out what the app wants, it can be a bit frustrating. I’ll most likely use the app for now, but will continue to look for updates or a better app.

This app allows very accurate hydration calculations for bread recipes. It accounts for the water needed for inclusions including any soakers needed for dry fruit, seeds etc. The developer is very responsive and offers an information packed website with recipes and tutorials. Multiple stages including levains, poolish, sourdoughs etc are possibile. Timers, personalized recipes and notes are supported. A number of starter recipes are included. This s the best bread baking app available. Buy it, you won’t regret it!

It is not clear how the app’s author is calculating the percentages shown in the various bread formulas. After trying to make sense of the percentages shown in various formulas, what did become really clear is that the percentages in the formulas are NOT consistent with the standards for baker’s percentages by the Bread Baker’s Guild of America (BBGA). Perhaps they have a different system down under?? If you are looking for an app to create and save bread formulas according to BBGA standards, look elsewhere.