Hello all.

(I do not at any point want to discourage anyone from using either
cups or scales simply that we use them for the right reasons.
Knowledge is empowering after all.)

A discussion recently in another group about cups v scales, brought up
that flour and humidity thing.

Since I've noticed that it's only people that bake using cups that
ever mention this as a search on the internet confirmed, (one or two
who used scales mentioned it but their argument didn't make any sense
at all so I disregard it).

Well in the name of balance (no pun intended) I thought I'd see what I
could find for myself.

The weather here in London had been quite dry a for a week so I
expected the flour to be on the dryer side too.

I took a bag (paper) of flour and weighed it. I also weighed an inert
control weight.

I then put a large tray in the bottom of the oven, filled it with
boiling water and switched the oven on set to 40C.
I then put the flour in the oven and waited on hour.

After the hour was up the flour in 100% humidity had gained just 1.4%
weight and of course the control was unchanged.

I returned the flour to the oven and waited one more hour. This time
there was no change at all. So I returned the flour to the oven.

I repeated this for four hours with no further change.

I then returned the flour to the cupboard. The next day the weather
was very wet and the flour was just 0.5% above the starting weight.

So, it seems my flour absorbed only 1.4% of it's weight from the water
in the 100% humidity air at 40C. And just 0.5% when left in the
kitchen cupboard.

This really isn't significant in the slightest and I'd challenge any
home baker to spot the difference when they were mixing.

I put this to the people in the other group but they had all suddenly
lost their voice.

Again I'm not interested in discouraging people from using either cups
or scales they both have their uses fulfilling the different needs of
different home bakers. I just think we should use the method that
suites us for honest and real reasons, there's no need to invent
reasons for what we do in the kitchen. Because we are comfortable with
that way is enough.

Jim