How do you measure food portions for vending?
 

I hope this isn't a stupid question. I do have 2,3,4, & 5oz. spoons & dippers for beans and stew. But, how do you measure out pork & brisket for plates and sandwiches. I tried the ice cream scoop with the flip switch to dump it. It works ok on chopped brisket but not so much on pulled pork. I'm sure some of you veteran vendors have a much better way to serve proper portions. Please help.

We use a digital scale and a plastic bowl to hold the meat on top of the scale. Works very well for us. HTH ;)

I used digital scales in the beginning but if you make enough sandwiches you learn to eyeball it and be close and maybe spot check yourself every now and then. For me I found that the 4" buns that I use when piled high with pork will only hold about 4.5 oz of pork, but the same bun with sliced brisket will hold much more. Now change that bun to a 4.5" bun just a half in larger and that sucker will hold almost a half pound of pork so small changes can make huge differences. For sides I have portion control spoons but we use styro 3 compartment meal trays and they are right at 4oz when filled level in the side compartments. For our cold sides we use 4oz Dart containers.

Plus 1 on the digital scale untill you get the eye. But of coarse you will get people who say " they got more than I did:mmph:" But you have your scale to show them no they didn't!!

I got a nice digital scale on ebay for very reasonable. It's AC and battery operated. We just use wax sheets on the scale. We had trouble with the smaller battery operated scales. This one is large and a big target to weigh portions of meat. We do tritip and "eyeballing" will kill the margin. It's just too expensive.

YUP! That's why I LOVE my scale - I had one lady who swore she didn't get any meat on her nachos - I explained that we weigh every portion...no argument then. And we get it close - we never go under our portion, but a .2 or .3 here or there - no worries ;) Plus it keeps my Dad (who is an AWESOME helper!!!) from being too heavy handed when I'm not lookin - LOL!

The one I bought off of ebay just came in today. We probably got the same thing. I think it was $50 and it goes from 4oz.-66lbs. Can't wait to try it. I'm cooking at home this weekend for a practice run and to measure weight loss on butts and brisket. Thanks for the help.

66lbs wow can you link the one you got? Mine only goes to 11lbs

This is the one I use. Has a 30lb capacity which has always been enough for me. I use it to weigh meat after trimming and/or cooking to check yield.

http://www.pennscale.com/products/nt...-scale-cm-101/

I couldn't find the exact one I bought. This one is very close but it only goes to 60lbs. Mine was $4 more and went to 66lbs.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-Weig...10707422436%26