My aunt's pie crust comment made me ditch my scale for a week

Last Sunday my aunt watched me weigh out flour for a batch of sourdough and said "you trust that thing more than your hands." I laughed it off but then tried her method, just feeling the dough and adding water by eye. Burned two batches of cookies before I realized my flour's humidity is way different than hers, so now I'm back to weighing but I finally get why she bakes by instinct. Has anyone else tried going no-scale after a family member's comment and ended up with a worse loaf?

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schmidt.blake18d ago

My gram tried to get me to go no-scale with my brisket rub and I ended up with enough salt to preserve a small animal. The thing is, my flour sits in a humid apartment, her flour lives in a dry mountain house. We are not baking in the same universe. Scales are just a way to stop fighting with the air around you. I trust my hands for shaping dough, but I trust the scale for the math part. People who bake by feel have baked the same recipe in the same kitchen for thirty years. That's not instinct, that's a memory card.