Weight of water

[yakima]

So I converted a no knead bread recipe from cups to grams. 3 cups AP, 1.5 cups water. Came up with 360/360 grams. Thought it was odd to be at 100% hydration. Baked it, after much effort folding, etc, dealing with sticky dough. Turned out ok, good crumb, not as much rise as I expected. But proof was ok.
I had baked this friend's recipe once before, using cup measurements. Much better rise then.
so dug around a bit re measurement.
Have a Sur Le Table 1 cup, marked 240. weight on my scale 243.
Google search 240 grams.
Kenji, Food Lab 227 grams.

If I use Kenji's numbers I get 75% hydration, which makes more sense.
I won't bother with the flour weight. You get the idea.
What am I missing?
Knowing the Pythagorean theorem is not helpful.

[rickgregory]

Get a scale and weigh things. Flour will vary with differences in humidity and there's always some measurement error when using volume (esp if you're asked to do something like 2-3/8 cups...are you REALLY adding 3/8 and not 4/8?).

A gram scale is $20 or under (I have this https://www.amazon.com/Ozeri-ZK14-S-...61&sr=8-2&th=1 and it's fine if not fancy) and you can just weigh everything so you know what's what. It also makes recipes repeatable since you're always using the same amount of flour, etc.

[Alan Brice]

Ten bucks? Down from fifteen, I am in!

[jhapka]

You’re not missing anything volumetric measurements suck so find recipes where you don’t have to convert volumetric to grams.

[Mosca]

All I know is that a pint’s a pound, the world around.

[IowaGirl]

That's true only for water or other materials with a density similar to water.

A pint of oil, for example, will weigh about .92 pounds, give or take a bit.

[Mosca]

IowaGirl Yep, that’s why I put it here! Learned it in grade school.

[RonB]

I agree with rickgregory . A scale will greatly improve your baking consistency.

A pound is is 454 grams. One cup is half that, or 227 grams, so 1.5 cups is 340 grams. 360 g for the flour looks good to me, but that gives you a dough that's still over 90% hydration. That will be difficult to handle, (as you found out ).

Here's a chart from King Arthur Flour that will help you convert ingredients from volumes to weights.

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/lea...t-weight-chart

Another point is that you do not always know how the flour was measured into the measuring cup. Dipping the cup into the flour will compact it, and it will weigh more. If you spoon flour into the cup, it will weigh less. some posted recipes do tell you how they put the flour in the cup, and some don't. On the rare occasions that I use a volume recipe, I assume that the flour was spooned into the cup. If the dough is too wet, I can always add more flour, but I can't remove flour from dough.

[scottranda]

WHAT HE SAID! Well said!

[shify]

Agreed. Stick with the scale and ditch any recipe that used volume measurements. Because volume measurements for flour are so inconsistent you’ll always run into issues converting. Easier just to start with weights than trying to back into it.

[bmillin]

This is why I don’t bake

[Donw]

But if you decide to give it a try sometime just use weight instead of volume and it will be easier in the long run.

[rickgregory]

Meh. A $10 scale avoids all of this. There are other things you need to do/want to do but measurement becomes trivial once you move to weighing things.

[captainlee]

You all are correct with your methods, the right thing to do. On the other hand, I'm dealing with 8500 foot elevation, extremely low humidity and variable barometric pressure which greatly affects baking at altitude. I just use a measuring cup and adjust the liquid to whatever the atmosphere is giving me that day. I can tell from the feel of the dough what i think it requires. I am very satisfied with my bread and pizza dough results. Maybe some others that bake at altitude can chime in.

[MBMorgan]

By education and more than a few decades of experience, I'm a scientist (now retired) and living in Colorado (6300 msl). Yes, the altitude is high, the humidity is low, and barometric pressure varies (like it does everywhere on earth ). I bake by weight. Period. I then adjust if it feels necessary.

My wife is neither a scientist nor an engineer. She's always been a pretty good baker, though ... totally grandma-taught. Ditto on living at altitude, in low humidity, and with variable barometric pressure.She bakes by volume. Period. She then adjusts if it feels necessary.

We BOTH enjoy pretty darn good results pretty much all the time. Emphasis on "enjoy". We each consistently do what works best for us ... and we enjoy it. Probably because, whatever and however we go about the business of baking, we both work pretty hard to do so consistently.

Bottom Line: Do what works for you. Pick a method, an approach, a borderline near-religious adherence to your favorite baking muse and his/her way of doing things, whatever, ... and stick with it ... until or unless you decide to try something different.

... oh, and I often find the Pythagorean Theorem to still be very helpful. Not so much with baking, though ... ...

[rickgregory]

Except, I bet your wife has developed a feel for how your flour works and a lot else over time. For people early in the journey and esp who didn't hav e grandma teaching them, weight makes it easy. Your flour is very dry due to humidity. Mine, right now is not. But 500g is 500g.

[Michael_in_TX]

When I first started experimenting with baking, I really disliked all the weight stuff. For example, it drove me crazy that Brian Lagerstrom -- whom I greatly admire -- did everything in grams. I don't think in grams! I know what a cup is; I have no clue was 225 grams is!

But I got myself a scale and slowly and grudgingly switched over.

My results, and perhaps more importantly, my consistency improved remarkably! I was actually quite shocked at the difference it made in my results, primarily in that they started to come out just like the Youtube videos I was watching.

Now, it is the other way around: when I watch Sam the Cooking Guy, who does everything with volumetric measurements, it drives me crazy.

[rickgregory]

"perhaps more importantly, my consistency improved remarkably! "

This. You can do what MBMorgan's wife does but you need a lot of experience

[Steve B]

This is an interesting topic as I recently got a new stand mixer. And also just ordered a new scale more suitable for measuring in grams.
From what I’m seeing, reading, measuring by weight is by far more accurate and will give better results than measuring by volume.

[rickgregory]

It also makes the math on hydration easy. Quick what's 74% hydration of 3-3/8 cup? Uh...

What's 73% hydration of 420g? Easy with a calculator - 307g.

[DaveD]

Add my voice to the "get a scale" chorus.

And all of this illustrates the craziness of (as my first physics teacher called it) the Screwed-Up British Engineering system of measurements. Ounces, cups, furlongs... yuck. Metric ftw! 1 litre of water weighs one kilogram. Done!

[WayneT]

+1. Metric system is so much more precise especially when dealing with very small measurements for things like yeast. I have two scales, one that is accurate to 1 gram and another to 0.01 grams and both have a role in my kitchen.

[jhapka]

OP said in his post that he has a scale

[Richard Chrz]

I kind of think, if getting a scale is too much work for you, give up the idea of bread. Go get a bread maker and the pre made kits.

[yakima]

I do have a scale, and concur with all comments above re using it.

My point is that published information re the weight of one cup of water, in grams, varies from 227 to 240 grams. Why, and what is accurate?

[Richard Chrz]

My apologies for mis reading.

[WayneT]

If your application is for baking bread, a 13 g difference is insignificant and can be easily corrected with a very small amount of additional flour if you feel your dough is too wet.

[yakima]

Both King Arthur and Kenji agree on 227 grams. I will go with them.
Sur Le Table's measuring cup says 240.
A google search comes up with 236 grams.