So given that these things are a pretty important part of your kitchen, shouldn’t you be taking some serious care in choosing them?
Are they analog or digital? Old-style scales have a circular reading linked to a spring. They might be charmingly old-fashioned, but they’re also frequently inaccurate, hard to read, and very imprecise. Go for digital food scales every time – the readout alone will make it worth it.
Can you read the readout? Assuming, that is, you can actually read it. Remember, you’re likely to be above these scales – is it easy to see the readout when you’re standing over them? Are the scales large enough to see past large bowls? How’s the color, the contrast, and the scratch-proofing on the readout?
Is the scale big enough? Remember, you’re probably going to want to put mixing pots and suchlike on your scale. It’s going to do you no good if you can’t portion out your flour because you can’t see how much it weighs past your enormous mixing bowl.
How accurate are they? You want at least +- 1 gram – in other words, accurate to within about two grams. Any less than that and small tasks, making coffee, and a bunch of more fiddly operations become impossible. Ideally you want a scale accurate to a tenth of 
a gram, which will also let you do molecular gastronomy should you wish. The Eatsmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Food Scale gets high marks at Amazon’s review site. Other leading kitchen food scale brand names include Oxo, Kinrex and Escali.
How sturdy are they? Scales, since they are a kitchen appliance get all sorts of things spilled on them. And they tend to get things dropped on them too. Those glass scales may look nice now, but how are they going to look after six months of grease and flour has been spilled on them?If they’re going to get cafetières put on them a lot, are they waterproof?
How much do they cost? Let’s be honest, it’s one of the big questions you’re going to want to ask. No matter how perfect they are, you won’t be wanting to spend $300 on a set of scales, so price yourself appropriately. You can get great scales for very little money – $30 or less – and they’ll do just as good a job.
Can you think of anything else we should be considering on the scales front? Anything we’ve missed, or other features that are vital to your scales’ usefulness?
