Anger at the Details

Like most people, I took up sourdough bread during the 'Rona Lockdowns. Unlike most people, I took it up slightly before the big panic erased all the flour from the shelves. My experiments back then were mostly about trying to find enough dang flour to make things happen.

But that's not why I'm ticked off, today.

In the process of perfecting bread, as well as being on the Ketogenic diet, I have some digital kitchen scales. I actually bought a second set so I didn't have to keep swapping containers while attempting to evenly divide my dough. Over the passage of several baking days, I began to suspect something was awry.

So I tested it.

Further experiments revealed that, the larger the weight, the greater the discrepancy between the scales. A shot glass would not cause any raised eyebrows. A small bowl of water has a one gram difference.

Thanks to Miss Chaos [youngest child of mine], we devised another test. How accurate was each scale? We needed a known weight. Good thing for me I invest in bulk non-perishables.

Turns out... neither of them are accurate. At all.

Now factor into the equation that doing some levels of baking requires pinpoint fucking accuracy. I have been blaming myself for all my sod loaves when it could have been a critical error in my instruments. Worse and worse - they don't weigh the same item the same way twice.

I'm outright ropeable about this.

My options are:
* Fudge everything and hope for the best
* Find a more scientific scale and buy two
* Somehow acquire some old-school balance scales with set weights where the micrograms from standard won't count for hundreds of years. Twice.

If I was a more paranoid soul, I'd invent a conspiracy to sell expert baker's efforts and not actually do anything for oneself. I might have to go into a professional baker's supply area for the professional level scales and bring a set weight along for testing.

I shall be terror with a can of condensed soup, I am sure.

Of course, that might not happen. Beloved or Adorable may yet step in with a better option, probably adjacent to my second one above. We tend to help each other like that.

...but I'm still bringing along the set weight for in-store testing. Once burned and all that jazz.