[gopowerranger]

When you add salt to bread, and the recipe calls for one teaspoon, a teaspoon of kosher salt is not the same as table salt or sea salt. So how much is it? (It's significantly different.)

When something calls for three cups of flour, and it's a humid day, or a dry day, does that affect the quantity? Yes it does. Significantly enough to affect bread.

Both of the above reasons are why bread bakers weigh all their ingredients, including water.

[imgabe]

You can weigh things with either metric or imperial units. Measuring volume when you want to know mass is a mistake you can make regardless of what units you're using.

I don't see how weighing the flour will help. A given volume of moist flour will weigh more than dry flour because of the water in it, so you'd still have a problem on humid days.

[fanf2]

You can't weigh things with Imperial units because they are British units of volume. You weigh things with avoirdupois units.

[kbutler]

Age and storage conditions of the flour have much more to do with the moisture content than the humidity of the individual day.

But yes, measure by weight.

pounds vs kilograms isn't particularly important (as long as you keep them straight!)

[wil421]

Real cooks would never use table salt. Its almost always sea salt or kosher salt. Would you rather have something nature made or something made by a chemical process in a plant?

I own a lot of Grilling/BBQ books and normal recipe books, almost everyone says to never use table salt somewhere in the book.

My Himalayan salt is quite good for seasoning and was deposited millions of years ago. Compare that to Morton's table salt with iodine my grandmother used to use.

[imgabe]

Iodized salt is responsible for raising the average IQ of billions of people around the world because iodine deficiency leads to intellectual and developmental disabilities. It's not some sinister additive that people need to avoid. It's one of the most successful public health efforts ever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodised_salt

[wil421]

I'm sure I would get the recommended Iodine dose from any sort of processed foods I eat or from any cheaper restaurants I frequent that use table salt.

There are many people that dont cook at home and I doubt their Iodine levels are low.

Also I never said it was some sinister corporation spreading false info.

[ska]

This is very true.

Given that you have enough iodine in your diet though, avoiding it in seasoning is sensible.

[JoeAltmaier]

They are very different - table salt conforms to a quality standard while the others have varying trace contaminants. They may add to flavor, but not in any reliable predictable way. And the major active ingredient of both is sodium.

Its fun to play with cool, colorful salts. By the time the cooking is done, I'd bet cash money no one can tell the difference.

[ska]

   By the time the cooking is done, I'd bet cash money no one can tell the difference.

I suspect you'd lose that bet - informally I've tried many experiments with iodized and non-iodized salts, and the iodine can change flavor.

Besides that, one of the main reasons to use different salts is crystal size which can have significant effect (depends on what you are doing, obviously). For example, koshering salt is called that because of its use in koshering meats, where the large crystal structure helps control absorption. Likewise in "finishing" applications.

[wil421]

If you follow many recipes are use table salt instead of kosher salt I guarantee it will come out salty.

Serious Eats has an article and it really validates a part of both of our points[1]:

>"So long as your salt is going to be dissolved and distributed evenly into the final dish...there's no reason to use kosher salt...Just remember, check your recipes and make sure to compensate for table salt's density when adding it."

If you have access to Good Eats, Alton Brown explains it pretty well.[2]

[1]http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/ask-the-food-lab-do-i-nee...

[2]http://www.thekitchn.com/salt-101-alton-brown-and-the-p-1042...

[dragonwriter]

> Real cooks would never use table salt.

Real cooks use table salt all the time. Other salts are mostly useful as finishing salts (where the subtle distinctions in flavor and texture between different salts, or different sized grinds of the same salt, come out, and where color distinctions can impact presentation) rather than in cooking itself (where they don't.)

> My Himalayan salt is quite good for seasoning and was deposited millions of years ago. Compare that to Morton's table salt with iodine my grandmother used to use.

...and, what? Both are good for seasoning, the table salt with iodine is better for avoiding the (otherwise fairly common) iodine deficiency (conversely, its a good thing to avoid if you are iodine sensitive). I'd rather use the Himalayan salt as a finishing salt for some things.

Also, table salt vs. other salt and iodized salt vs. non-iodized salt are orthogonal distinctions (and table vs. other salt is a different distinction than "made in nature" vs. "made in a chemical process in a plant".)

Kosher, Sea, and some other salts are available iodized, and table salt is available non-iodized.

[soylentcola]

Not concerned about whether "nature" made it so much as I am about grain size. The bigger crystals in kosher/sea salt are better for a lot of uses.

At the same time, if you're just gonna boil water and dissolve some salt in it, it doesn't really matter so much as the actual amount of salt.

[wil421]

If you are concerned about grain size I doubt the only thing you use salt for is to boil things.

[janwillemb]

real cooks use butterflies