December 10, 2018 - 2:06am
mixing by judgement
Hi all.
Rather than measuring exact to the gram.
Do any or you mix by feeling the water or flour content i seem to be going in that direction also understanding how important to follow trusted recipes
Some flours have different hydration rates etc getting the.feel when its right.For me the results are better
Just wondering out loud
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to the gram but I definitely go by feel when it comes to water. I tend to be conservative with the water and then add as needed until the dough feels right to me. It is interesting that I consistently end up in the 74-75 % hydration range. Although this last bake was quite a bit higher than that but I was following someone else’s recipe.
There are bakers here that swear by either one method or the other. I use both. The downfall of the "mixing by judgement" method is that it is hard to share the recipe and sometimes hard to reproduce. Generally,I stick to a recipe the first time I make something and after that I adjust it to how I think it would be better-either technique or ingredients. Other than that, I use the throw-together method often.
To measure out the flour and slowly add water till it feels right rather than estimating flour and water. I can estimate the flour, add the water get a good loaf out of it but while the loaf itself will turn out ok I might be quite a bit off to the size of the final loaf.
I concur with Abe. Making a certain amount of dough to fit a pan is another reason to measure. Doesn't matter as much if you are going free-form-a boule, batard or rolls.