I stopped weighing flour and my bread got worse for 2 months before it got better
Everyone in my local baking group swears you have to weigh every single thing, but I quit doing it last spring and honestly the bread is fine now. Back in March I was spending 15 minutes per loaf just measuring, and my loaves still came out dense half the time. So I started just scooping flour with a cup and going by feel like my grandma in Fresno did, and the first 8 or 9 bakes were rough, real rough. But last Sunday I pulled a boule with an open crumb that beat anything I ever weighed out, and I think the scoop method taught me to read the dough instead of the scale. Has anyone else dropped the scale and stuck with it, or did you go back after a few bad loaves?
Guess it depends what you mean by worse and better. A boule with an open crumb is nice but that's one loaf out of how many since March? If 8 or 9 were rough and then one came out great, that could just be luck or a good bag of flour. I scoop sometimes too but I still check with a scale every few bakes because my scoop can swing 20 percent depending on how packed the flour is. Feels like going by feel works until it doesn't, and then you have no idea what changed.