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Sourdough Hydration Calculator

Enter your flour, water, and salt in grams to calculate dough hydration.

How it is calculated

Everything is in grams and relative to the flour, the way bakers' percentages work. hydration % = water / flour × 100, salt % = salt / flour × 100 and total dough = flour + water + salt. Hydration and salt percentage are shown to one decimal, the total to the nearest gram. Flour must be greater than zero; water and salt can be zero, but the salt field must be filled in (enter 0 for none). There is no separate field for the starter: if you add a levain, count its flour in the flour figure and its water in the water figure, otherwise the hydration of the whole dough will be misread. Added ingredients such as seeds or milk are not included.

Worked example

A loaf with 500 g flour, 375 g water and 10 g salt. Hydration: 375 / 500 × 100 = 75.0%. Salt: 10 / 500 × 100 = 2.0%. Total dough: 500 + 375 + 10 = 885 g. If you wanted 80% hydration with the same flour, you would need 400 g of water, 25 g more.

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Common mistakes

  • Dividing water by the total dough weight rather than by the flour weight; that gives 42.4% here instead of 75.0%, because baker's percentages always use flour as 100%.
  • Leaving out the flour and water that come with the starter, which understates both amounts when the levain is a large part of the dough.
  • Mixing units, such as flour in grams and water in millilitres or cups; weigh both, since 1 ml of water is about 1 g but cups of flour vary.
  • Treating the salt percentage as a share of the whole dough; it is calculated on the flour, so 10 g on 500 g is 2.0%, not 1.1%.
  • Leaving the salt field empty because you used none; the tool needs a 0 there, otherwise it returns nothing.

About this calculator

Hydration percentage in bread baking is the weight of water in a dough expressed as a percentage of the flour weight (water ÷ flour × 100), using baker's percentages — the standard way bakers scale recipes regardless of batch size. It's the single most important number for predicting how a dough will behave: low-hydration doughs (60–65%) are stiff and easy to shape, while high-hydration doughs (80%+) produce a more open, airy crumb but are stickier and harder to handle.

Weigh the flour, water and salt in grams and you get the hydration percentage, the total dough weight and the salt percentage, the core numbers sourdough and artisan bakers use to compare recipes, resize a formula for another loaf and tune hydration to their flour's absorption and the crumb they want.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    The same hydration number can feel different in the bowl depending on the flour. Whole-grain and rye flours absorb more water than white bread flour, so a dough at 75 percent made from whole wheat usually handles drier than a white dough at the same figure. Use the percentage to compare your own recipes, then adjust by feel. Which flour do you bake with most, and what hydration do you find manageable?

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