I really enjoy cooking. I used to be a super fussy eater and compared to many, I still am. But cooking opens up a world of foods to me. When you put in the effort to cook things, tasting it as you go and investing time in the creation of a meal, you’re much more likely to actually eat it or taste new things. There’s one other problem though. I said I really enjoy cooking but I never said anything about being good at cooking. I tend to fall apart following some of the simplest recipes, so naturally, I assumed there’s some sort of gadget out there to help with this problem. This is my review of the Drop Kitchen Scale.
What is Drop?
I almost never wait this long to nationality drop but, this incredible gadget is Irish born and bred. In a strange turn of events, perfectly demonstrating just how local they are, I was delighted to hear that one of the judging teams at a recent Story Slam in Dublin was, in fact, the Drop team. While interesting, I digress.
So Drop is an Irish startup, but what the hell do they do? Well, it’s actually quite simple. Nearly every home has a kitchen scale. You put a bowl on top, measure in ingredients using a black and white display to tell you how much you’re adding before cooking away to your heart’s content. Generally speaking, you’re either following a recipe in your head or something you’ve found online or in a book.
The Drop Kitchen Scale works in a similar manner. You put a bowl or plate on top to hold your ingredients, but then things get a little cooler. There’s no display built into the Drop Scale, instead, the red device connects to your iPhone, iPad or Android device. With the Drop Recipes app, you connect to the scales and can see the weight or volume of the ingredient you’re dealing with.
Then it gets even cooler!
The Drop Recipes app, as you might expect, has recipes programmed into it. When you select the meal you want to make, simply pick it and Drop will hold your hand as you go. So if the recipe asks for 100 grams of butter, the scales will show you how much you’re adding and once you hit 100 grams it’ll move on, prompting you to get the next ingredient ready.
Drop Review: Cooking With Drop for the First Time
Ok, so on paper, the Drop Kitchen Scale is awesome but is it actually any good? Like I said earlier, I enjoy cooking and trying new ingredients. I’m often compelled to rummage around some of Dublin’s more hipster food stores like Dunnes Rathmines (seriously) or Fallon and Byrne. After a quick rummage, I decided to head home and make some mussels. Now, I’ve made mussels once before and couldn’t for the life of me remember what recipe I used. Then it occurred to me; that Drop scales I bought before Christmas still hasn’t had any use.
What’s For Dinner?
I opened up the Drop Recipes app and searched for mussels. I was a little disappointed to see only one option there, but still – the ingredients sounded tasty enough. I wandered around Dunners picking up everything I needed to get cooking and headed home.
Getting Started With The Drop Scale
Drop works with both Android and Apple devices but to be completely honest, Android isn’t quite as good as Apple just yet. For example, Android recipes don’t progress automatically though the company did tell me that this is a feature they hope to roll out in 2018. Regardless, I hooked up my Drop to an old iPhone 5c and got cooking.
The First Snag
It didn’t take long to find a snag. I had bought a massive bag of mussels; twice the weight of the recipe. This is honestly one of the coolest features of Drop. As you start the recipe it asks how many people you are trying to feed with your meal. I bumped the number of mouths from two to three and suddenly I had the perfect amount of mussels. Better still, the app automatically adjusted all the ingredients to match the bigger portions. That’s incredibly smart.
Nobody’s Perfect
As I worked my way through the recipe, I couldn’t believe how simple it was making the process. Sure, because there’s a Drop Creator process which means anyone can submit recipes, some of the instructions might not be perfect or be open to interpretation. For example, it would be nice to get the heads up for head the pan with butter a couple of steps before you need it. That’s me really nitpicking and to be fair, it’s not Drop’s fault a Drop Creator submitted a recipe that was only slightly short of perfect.
With that absolute first world problem aside, the whole process of cooking with Drop is incredibly straightforward. Another fantastic feature is how Drop doesn’t care if is solids or liquids your mixing. I was lobbing butter and chopped shallots into a bowl one minute and pouring double cream all over wine in the next. The smart kitchen scale tracked it all, letting me know when the perfect amount was poured before telling me what was next on the menu.
The Perfect Ingredients Make the Perfect Recipe
This has to be one of my favourite reviews of all time. I’m usually reviewing something that’s pure tech related, you know? Like a smartphone or something. Kitchen scales and cooking are far from being my forte so this was a very genuine review of someone with little clue trying out something for the first time, and boy was I impressed with Drop.
As a startup, I can’t help but feel they might be stretched a bit, but Drop are far from lacking in support. They’ve been in the official Apple store online for quite some time and recently announced a partnership with Kenwood, a huge kitchen appliance manufacturer. They will now integrate Drop’s technology into their kCook Multi Smart food processor.
Drop is clearly a plucky Irish company leading the way in connected kitchen technology. You might not have heard of them before now, but I assure you; Drop will be in every kitchen before long whether you know they’re there or not.
Oh and here. Would you look at the dish I ended up making – it was only bleedin’ delish man.
