Weighing stuff the most accurate way.
Adding more flour "till it kneads right" sounds horrific.

When you make a cake, do you add more flour till it mixes right?

Hmm.
(Himjim died a little more inside on, Fri 10 Sep 2010, 12:43, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

of course not.
because in a cake you are balancing the ratios of more than two things. Bread is flour, yeast and water, and if you're using live yeast, you have a massive tolerance in the amount in there. Salt, yeah, but that's got a degree of tolerance too.

Adding more flour/water until the texture is OK simply affects the amount of bread you end up with.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Fri 10 Sep 2010, 12:48, Reply)

Not really
It affects texture, consistency and how fast it bakes...
(Himjim died a little more inside on, Fri 10 Sep 2010, 13:03, Reply)

Not really, no.
that's affected solely by the ratio of starch to water, how good your yeast is and how big the loaf is. Since flours vary in starch content, by a country mile the best way to get consistent loaves is to make consistent dough texture. weighing ingredients only works if you always use the same batch of the same flour and that's not practical in a domestic kitchen.

If I end up with too much dough then I make more loaves. I don't just bake all the dough as one random loaf, obviously that would fuck things up.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Fri 10 Sep 2010, 13:55, Reply)