January 24, 2012 - 5:45am
Kosher Salt and Lack of Flavour
Could using kosher salt be the reason my breads have tended to be on the flavourless side of late?
The recent Larraburra loaf being just one failure, several others since then have too been underwhelming.
I recently started using kosher salt and wonder if that could be a/the cause.
If recipe calls for 2 teaspoons salt, I use 2 teaspoons. Should I be using 3 or 4 of kosher?
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Yeah! The crystals are larger with kosher salt, so there's more empty space between them than table salt. Depending what brand you use, you'll end up using "more" kosher salt than regular salt in a recipe (offhand I think I remember 1.5 times? maybe someone knows more confidently). Maybe do a search for your salt specifically.
the weight can vary from 5 oz/142 g to 8 oz/227 g per cup, depending on manufacturer. Kosher salt is one place where you always have to measure by weight.
Stan Ginsberg
www.nybakers.com
Looks like the one I'm using is 1:1.75 by volume.
Amazing.
When I checked it on the scale, the pile of kosher salt was 3x the size of the table salt.
I knew there was a difference, I just didn't think it would be that drastic.
(This also explains why my (all) sourdough loaves have been rising like gangbusters. It's not that my starter has increased in strength or activity, it's that the decreased salinity in my dough (for using Kosher salt at the same volumetric quantity as table salt) has not slowed fermentation to the same extent that table salt usually does. Neat! If ever I needed a testament to the power of salt to slow things down, now I have it.)
You should be weighing it.
So it's not senility after all! It's salinity.
Thanks all. I'll do some research and find the correct volume to weight for the Kosher salt I'm using.
-=-
dmsnyder, you might have been right about the salt being the problem re: my Larrabura.
Get a scale and weigh your ingredients - why bother with all the inaccurate volume/weight conversions that differ by amazingly wide margins, depending on what baking book, magazine, website or other information source you use.
Karin
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/21015/tartine-book-how-much-tablespoon#comment-146758