Appreciation post: That retired roaster who told me to ditch my digital scale

Three years ago at a cupping in Seattle, an old-timer named Jim said my scale was lying to me because it couldn't handle tiny dose changes, so I switched to a manual balance and now my pour-overs actually taste consistent, has anyone else had a gear snob steer you wrong or right like that?

4 comments

4 Comments

harper9141mo ago

Is it just me or is there this weird thing where we trust a glowing screen more than our own hands? I noticed the same thing with my buddy who bakes bread. He used to stare at his digital thermometer for the water temp, then one day his grandma showed him to just feel it with his finger. Now his loaves come out better than ever. There's something about all these precise tools that makes us forget our senses actually work pretty good.

the_olivia1mo agoOG Member

My oven thermometer was off by 25 degrees the whole time I used it.

lily572d ago

Man, I've been there. @sethfoster hit it right about hands knowing things, my dad taught me to judge doneness of steak by poking it with my finger and he was never wrong. I use a manual scale now for pour-overs too, lets me feel the weight change instead of staring at numbers bouncing around.

sethfoster1mo ago

harper914 nailed it with that glowing screen thing. Its like we've convinced ourselves that if a number isnt blinking on a screen then we're just guessing. But your hands have been doing this stuff since you were a kid. You knew when water was hot enough for bathwater or when dough felt right. The scale thing with coffee is the same. My buddy started weighing his beans down to the tenth of a gram and his coffee got worse somehow because he was so focused on hitting some exact number instead of just paying attention to what the brew looked like. These tools are supposed to help us not replace our own judgment.