I used to wing it with dough hydration, now I measure EVERYTHING

For the first 5 years I baked bread, I just guessed at water amounts and wondered why my loaves were hit or miss. After a failed batch for a wedding order in Portland last spring, I finally bought a decent scale and started tracking hydration percentages. Now I weigh all my ingredients down to the gram and my crumb is way more consistent. Does anyone else find that even 5 grams of extra water can mess up an entire batch?

2 comments

2 Comments

ben20616d ago

That "water wants to ruin your life" thing hits hard. It's like how I can use the exact same coffee beans but one day it tastes bitter and the next it's perfect because of 15 extra seconds steeping. Or how my neighbor's lawn looks great with the same fertilizer I use but his soil pH is off by a tiny bit. Little details stack up fast. Measuring everything makes you realize how many variables we just ignore normally.

william_jackson6517d ago

Measure everything now myself after a few disasters, turns out water wants to ruin your life for real.