That flour scale was off by 8 grams and it ruined my bread for months

I bought a cheap digital scale off Amazon back in March and just assumed it was correct. My loaves kept coming out dense and gummy no matter what I did. I switched flours, changed hydration, even thought my oven was lying. Then a friend brought over their fancy scale and we weighed the same cup of flour. Mine showed 142 grams, theirs showed 134, that's a huge difference over 500 grams of flour. I checked with a nickel, it should weigh 5 grams but my scale said 5.4. That little error threw off every recipe I did for like 4 months. Now I test my scale with coins before every bake, has anyone else dealt with this?

1 comments

1 Comment

mila_reed1d ago

And the nickel test is only good if the scale is level too. I had one that drifted when it warmed up from sitting in the sun, so I started checking zero before and after every weigh. The real trick is to test at two different weights, like a nickel and a quarter, because some scales are fine at small amounts but lose their mind at 500 grams. Once I started doing that, I found my scale was actually off by up to 12 grams at higher weights, way worse than the nickel showed. Now I just keep a small calibration weight in my flour bin and check it every Sunday, takes ten seconds and saves me from wasting a whole morning on a bad loaf.