How is the hydration calculated? (Pic unrelated, sorry)
Ive been using the weight of the flour and multiplying by the percentage for example,I would use 500g flour and then multiply 500 by .75, to determine that I need 375 g water, and thinking this is a 75% hydration loaf.
I recently shared a recipe on here that l thought was pretty high hydration, but someone commented that my dough was low hydration and now I am confused.
Thanks in advance.
by Xanturrya
15 Comments
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Yes. That’s not a low hydration loaf and that is how it calculated. I do the very common 1000 g flour and 700 g water for two loaves, and they are a 70% hydration loaves. Then like the old baker I am I adjust by feel
[Bakers percentage](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/pro/reference/bakers-percentage)
Im thinking you “mathed” correctly using bakers math.
Thats insanely pretty scoring. ✌️
Yes your math is correct:
375/500=0.75
I would address with the other commenter, 75% is high hydration 😊
Technically you also need to add the starter but folks don’t usually bother because it doesn’t make a ton of difference.
Hydration between 70-75% is ok. Your loaf looks amazing. Congrats 🍞
My usual recipe is 74% hydration. So yours is within range.
Somewhat illogical because it should be 375/875 = 43%; but in sourdough world it’s the ratio of water to flour.
Hi. In Bakers percentages the bulk flour is 100% all other ingredients. Relate to that.
However, if you add in the flour and water in the starter you get the total % hydration. That depends on the amount of levain you add.
Happy baking
You did it correctly for baker’s percentage.
Low hydration doughs are around 50% hydration I believe. Most breads are 60-65%, and then anything above 70% is a slack dough which is high hydration.
If you want to be very accurate make sure you include what’s in your starter as well. Assuming you have a 1:1 starter just divide the starter weight by 2 and add that number to both your flour and water amount
There is Bakers Math, which is used to describe an ingredient list. Another reply has given you a link to describe that further.
Then there is Total Dough Hydration, which includes both water and flour in the ingredient list plus the contribution of the starter (broken down into its flour and water content).
If your recipe is 500g flour, 375g water, 100g starter, 10g salt as an example. The starter, if 100% hydration, is 50g flour and 50g water.
The total hydration would be:
Water = 375 + 50
Flour = 500 + 50
Hydration = 425/550 = 77%
Either way your recipe is high hydration, so whoever commented it is low is mistaken.
Exactly what you did, but don’t forget to include the flour and water of the sourdough starter in the calculation.
So, if you used 500 g of flour, 375 g of water and 100 g of starter (composed of 50 g each flour and water), you’d have a total of 550 g of flour and 425 g water, giving you an hydration of 77%
This is by no means low hydration. Low hydration would be 55-60% for me, and anything over 75% is already high hydration territory.
Total water / Total flower….
Don’t forget to include the water and flour in starter (typically 1:1).
If 1000g is your flour and 700g is your water then 70% of the bread is water!
Thats not low hydration though. Also very pretty (:
Hydration is simply total water divided by total flour, but things get confusing when the flour and water from a preferment or starter aren’t included. A 100% hydration levain already brings its own water and flour, so the true hydration can differ a lot from the number you get by looking only at the main dough.
Most of the disagreements you see here come from that. Some people count preferments, others don’t.
If you don’t want to calculate it manually every time, I made a free app called Flourwise (Google Play). It has a baker’s percentage calculator that automatically includes the flour and water from poolish, sourdough starter, tangzhong and any combination of them. You just enter your amounts and it gives you the actual hydration.
[Here’s an example with a sourdough starter](https://imgur.com/a/x3FVdGN)
[…and here’s a more complex one with a sourdough starter plus a poolish](https://imgur.com/a/EuBJmgm)