Just realized my kitchen scale was lying to me for 2 years

I was baking bread last week and my loaf kept coming out dense. Turns out my cheap scale from Walmart was off by like 15 grams on anything over 500g, checked it with a nickel and everything. That explains why my sourdough always failed around the 80% hydration mark. Anyone else ever catch their measuring gear being this shady or do I just buy the worst stuff in Des Moines?

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nelson.vera1mo ago

You ever just sit there and wonder how many perfectly good loaves you could've had if that dumb scale had been honest? Same thing happened to me with a food scale that read 5 grams light on small amounts, so my starter feedings were always a little off. Once I caught it, I bought a cheap calibration weight set for like 8 bucks and now I check every new scale before I trust it with flour. The trick is to test it at a few different points, like 50g, 200g, and 500g, since some scales drift only at the heavier end. Also, if you're baking by feel anyway, just adjust your dough hydration on the fly instead of fighting the numbers. Honestly, for bread, a slightly wetter or drier dough is way more forgiving than people think, so don't let that 15 grams steal two more years of good sourdough.

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moore.beth1mo ago

That bit about testing at different points really got me, @nelson.vera. I always thought if the scale was close enough at one weight it was fine, but now I'm gonna check mine at a few spots before my next bake. Sucks to think how many flat loaves I blamed on my starter when it was really just bad math.

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