Weighing flour ...are you sure it makes sense?
I have a question that I hope someone can answer... The one thing that bugs me about weighing flour is that it seems counter to producing a consistent hydration. I live north of Fairbanks, Alaska and the range of relative humidities in the house from one season to the next is extreme ...a direct result of the house being ventilated with air that ranges from 80-something and 90% humidity during summer rain, down to 50-below and 10% humidity during an arctic cold snap in winter. Flour kept in paper bags varies in how much moisture is absorbed in the flour. Making bread during the winter requires using up to 20% less flour than the same recipe would require in the summer.
Here's a simple example that is not even a bread recipe: If I weigh 1 pound of "more humid summer flour" and add it to 1 pound of water, you would say that I've achieved a 100% hydration mix ...but it's actually wetter than that due to the additional water that has absorbed into the flour during the summer. The 1 pound of 'flour' contains less flour and more water than 1 pound of flour in dry winter conditions. If I then weigh 1 pound of "very dry winter flour" and add it to 1 pound of water, then I very likely have produced something that is very close to 100% hydration ...but not equal to "100% hydration" out of someone's cookbook since they are likely measuring in an environment more humid than our winter environment. Obviously summer versus winter baking produces entirely different results.
So shall I assume that all these baker's percentages that you see running around are not used exactly? Even by a professional bread making company? I can imagine using experience and intuition to adjust recipes at home, but do professionals also judge and vary the flour or water? Or do they just weight everything and off they go ...accept the variance in outcome as normal? For us, that can't work ...bread fails miserably if you don't tune your ingredients as the seasons pass. For us, I see nearly no value in weighing anything other than the non-flour ingredients and then just "put the right amount of" flour in, using your own judgment as you proceed. Flour measurements have never seemed any better than a rough estimate, at best, to me. My wife even as little tables of adjustments for each season for how much to change water or flour in a recipe to make it succeed in her bread machine during different seasons (especially challenging in the dry winter months.)