A before and after weighing provides a mass relationship that a recipe title cannot. The Whatson Cooking Yield Calculator uses your raw and cooked masses to calculate a yield factor and the raw amount needed for a chosen cooked target.
The result is an extrapolation from the numbers you enter. It does not predict a new food’s yield without measurements.
Keep both weighings on the same basis
Enter raw mass and cooked mass in grams. Exclude the container consistently, and make sure both measurements refer to the material you intend to compare.
Added ingredients can contribute to the cooked mass. If a final dish includes additions that were absent from the raw weighing, its factor describes that particular preparation, not the isolated yield of the original ingredient.
The 500 g to 1,500 g example
Enter 500 g raw and 1,500 g cooked. The checked yield factor is 3, displayed as 300%.
For a cooked target of 2,000 g, the calculated raw requirement is 2,000 ÷ 3 = 666.667 g, rounded to three decimals. The measured mass change in the reference batch is 1,000 g.
A yield above 100% means the recorded cooked mass exceeds the recorded raw mass. It is not an efficiency score or a nutrition percentage.
A shrinking batch uses the same relationship
If 500 g raw becomes 400 g cooked, the factor is 0.8, or 80%. A 600 g cooked target would need 750 g raw at that same assumed factor.
The mass change is negative in that example. The tool reports it as a change rather than converting it into a positive gain.
Only extend the ratio to a comparable batch
A new ingredient, different preparation or different weighing stage can make the earlier factor unsuitable. The calculator cannot inspect those conditions or confirm that doubling a reference batch preserves its measured outcome.
Write down what “raw” and “cooked” meant in the reference measurement. That record helps decide whether the ratio is useful for the next plan.
Yield and cooking water answer different questions
Rice Portion Calculator and Daal Portion Calculator each have a cooked yield input as well as a separate water ratio. A factor of three does not automatically mean three volumes of cooking water.
Bread Dough Batch Calculator produces raw dough targets. A finished loaf target would need a separately appropriate yield assumption, not an assumption that raw dough mass equals cooled loaf mass.
Save the two reference weighings with the requested target. The resulting raw quantity is meaningful only as long as the chosen mass relationship describes your intended preparation.