Bread Hydration Calculator
Hydration percentage is the foundation of bread baking. Enter flour and water weights to get your dough hydration, or enter flour weight and target hydration to calculate water needed.
Bread Hydration Guide
Hydration Ranges
55–60%: Firm, easy to handle — bagels, pretzels, tight-crumbed sandwich loaves. 65–70%: Soft, open crumb — most everyday sourdoughs and focaccia. 75–80%: Sticky, extensible — high-hydration sourdough, ciabatta. 85%+: Very wet — difficult to shape, requires experience and strong flour.
How Hydration Affects Bread
Higher hydration produces a more open, irregular crumb with a chewier texture. Lower hydration gives a tighter, softer crumb. Whole wheat and rye flours absorb more water and need higher hydration to achieve the same dough feel.
Baker's Percentage
Baker's percentage treats flour as 100%. All other ingredients are expressed as a percentage of flour weight. Salt is typically 2%, yeast 0.2–1%, oil 5–10%. This makes scaling any recipe to any batch size trivially easy.
Food Safety Fundamentals
Food safety rules apply regardless of cooking method or time. The danger zone for bacterial growth is 4-60 degrees C — food should not remain in this range for more than 2 hours. Core temperature targets: poultry 74 degrees C throughout (no pink allowed), pork 71 degrees C, beef/lamb can be pink when above 63 degrees C (due to surface-only bacteria on whole cuts). Never use the same equipment for raw and cooked food without washing. Leftovers should be cooled rapidly (within 2 hours), refrigerat
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