Okay, let’s talk about this 600 gram thing. It started pretty simply, really. I saw this recipe, I think it was for a specific type of sourdough loaf, and it called for exactly 600 grams of dough for the final shaping. Not 590, not 610. Exactly 600 grams. Seemed a bit fussy to me, but I thought, alright, challenge accepted. I like knowing how things work, getting hands-on.
Getting Started
So, I got my starter ready the night before, all bubbly and active. The next morning, I pulled out my digital scale. This scale is usually pretty good, but I started wondering if it was that good. You know?
I measured out the flour, the water, the salt, and the starter. Mixed it all up. It felt okay, maybe a little wetter than I usually like, but the recipe said trust the process. So I did the folds, the bulk rise, all that jazz. Felt like I was doing everything by the book.
- Measured flour carefully.
- Added water slowly.
- Mixed in the salt and starter.
- Did the stretch and folds every half hour.
- Watched it rise on the counter.
The Weigh-In Drama
Then came the moment of truth. Time to divide and shape. I carefully tipped the dough out onto the counter. It spread out a bit. Looked pretty good. I got my bench scraper, took a deep breath, and cut off what I guessed was about 600 grams.
Plopped it onto the scale. 578 grams. Okay, not bad for a guess. I scraped up a little more dough from the main blob, added it. 595 grams. Getting closer. Another tiny bit. 603 grams. Argh! A little too much. I tried to pinch off just a tiny piece. Back to 598 grams. Seriously? It felt like I was defusing a bomb, not making bread.
I spent maybe five minutes just adding and removing tiny bits of dough. It stuck to my fingers, stuck to the scraper. It was getting annoying. I finally got it to flicker between 600 and 601 grams. Good enough, I decided. My patience was wearing thin.
What Really Mattered?
I shaped the 600-gram piece (well, 600-ish), put it in its little basket thingy, and let it proof. Baked it later that day. You know what? It turned out fine. It was a decent loaf of bread. Tasted good. Maybe the crust was slightly thicker on one side, who knows?
But the whole chasing-600-grams thing felt a bit silly afterwards. Did those extra 2 grams I shaved off, or the 2 grams I might have been under, really make a difference? Probably not. It made me think about how often we focus on hitting some precise target, some specific number, and maybe miss the bigger picture. The process was messy, a bit frustrating, but the end result was still enjoyable. Maybe being close enough is often just fine. That 600g target taught me more about my own fussiness than about baking bread, I think.