A guy in line at King Arthur said my scale was the problem, not my recipe
I was picking up a bag of bread flour in Norwich last month and this older guy behind me asked what I was making. I said sourdough and complained that my loaves keep coming out dense even after 8 tries. He asked if I weigh my ingredients or scoop with a cup. I said cups, like the recipe says. He laughed and said the recipe was written for a scale, and my cup of flour probably swings between 120 and 150 grams depending on how packed it is. I went home, got a $12 kitchen scale, and weighed everything. First loaf after that actually had an open crumb instead of a brick. I'm still kind of annoyed that a stranger in a flour store fixed in 5 minutes what I'd been fighting for 2 months. Did anyone else get schooled by a random person in a store like this?