Bread Hydration Calculator

About the Bread Hydration Calculator

Hydration is the single most important number in bread making. It describes how much water a dough contains relative to its flour, and it shapes almost everything about the loaf: how sticky the dough is to handle, how much it spreads, how open the crumb is and how crisp the crust becomes. Bakers talk about a "70% dough" or a "high-hydration focaccia" because the figure tells them so much at a glance.

This bread hydration calculator works in both directions. Enter the flour and water to find a dough's hydration, or enter the flour and a target hydration to find the water you need. It includes a sourdough starter if you use one, splitting it into its own flour and water, and it suggests the usual amount of salt.

How to Use the Bread Hydration Calculator

Choose whether to find the hydration of your dough or the water for a target hydration.

Enter the flour in grams, not counting any flour in the starter.

Enter the water in grams, or the target hydration percentage.

If you use a sourdough starter, enter its weight and its hydration — 100% for a starter fed with equal weights of flour and water.

How Hydration Is Calculated

  starter flour  =  starter ÷ (1 + starter hydration)
  starter water  =  starter − starter flour
  total flour    =  flour + starter flour
  total water    =  water + starter water
  hydration      =  total water ÷ total flour × 100
  water needed   =  total flour × target − starter water
  salt           =  total flour × 2%

Step-by-Step Example

500 g of flour and 350 g of water.

  Hydration:     350 ÷ 500              =  70%
  Salt:          500 × 2%               =  10 g

The same dough with 100 g of starter at 100% hydration.

  Starter:       50 g flour + 50 g water
  Totals:        550 g flour, 400 g water
  Hydration:     400 ÷ 550              =  72.7%

Water for 75% hydration with 500 g of flour.

  Water:         500 × 75%              =  375 g

Hydration and Dough Type

Lower hydration gives a tighter, more even crumb and a dough that holds its shape well. Higher hydration gives larger, irregular holes and a crisper crust, but the dough is sticky and needs techniques such as stretch-and-fold rather than kneading.

Baker's Percentages

Hydration is one example of baker's percentages, a system that expresses every ingredient as a percentage of the total flour. Flour is always 100%. A simple loaf might be 100% flour, 70% water, 2% salt and 1% instant yeast. The system makes recipes easy to scale — multiply every percentage by the flour weight — and easy to compare, because two recipes with different quantities can be seen to have the same proportions.

Flour Type Changes Everything

The same hydration feels different with different flours. Strong bread flour, with more protein, absorbs more water and handles a high hydration well. Whole wheat and rye flours absorb much more water again, because of the bran, so a whole wheat dough at 70% feels far stiffer than a white one. Many bakers add 5 to 10 percentage points of water for doughs with a lot of whole grain. Weaker, lower-protein flours become slack and sticky at hydrations that strong flour handles easily.

Other Liquids

Milk, eggs, butter and honey all contain water. Milk is about 87% water, eggs about 75% and butter about 16%. For a precise hydration figure in enriched doughs, count that water too. For most lean breads — flour, water, salt and yeast — the water on the scale is the only water that matters.

Adjusting a Dough That Feels Wrong

If a dough feels too stiff, add water a tablespoon at a time and let it absorb before judging again; flour keeps absorbing water for several minutes. If it feels too wet, resist adding lots of flour — a rest of twenty minutes, followed by a few folds, often makes a sticky dough far more manageable. Wet hands and a bench scraper help with high-hydration doughs more than extra flour does.

Hydration for Pizza Dough

Pizza doughs range widely. A New York style dough is often around 60 to 65% hydration, easy to stretch thin. Neapolitan dough, baked very hot and fast, is usually 60 to 65% with soft 00 flour. Roman and pan pizzas, and focaccia-like bases, go much higher, 70 to 80% or more, for a light, airy crust.

Keeping Notes on Your Doughs

Write down the flour, hydration and result of each bake. Over a few loaves, the notes show which hydration suits your flour, your kitchen and your skill, and make it easy to repeat a loaf you liked.

Understanding Your Result

Result is the hydration of your dough, or the water you need.

Hydration gives the percentage with a description of the dough type.

Total flour and water shows the totals, including the starter.

Salt suggests salt at 2% of the flour.

Worth knowing explains how whole grain flours change the feel.

When Should You Use This Calculator?

Designing or adjusting a bread recipe.

Working with sourdough, where the starter adds flour and water.

Scaling a recipe while keeping the same texture.

Comparing recipes written in different quantities.

Learning to handle wetter doughs step by step.

Common Mistakes

Ignoring the starter's water and flour.

Comparing hydration across different flours as if they behaved alike.

Adding too much flour to a sticky dough.

Measuring by cups instead of weighing.

Forgetting the salt, or adding far too much.