How do you find % of hydration in a bread recipe?

[Norm Matthews]

I see where people talk about bread recipes and mention a % of hydration. How do you figure that? When I make bread, I start with the amount of water or other liquid in a recipe then add the dry ingredients and rapid rising yeast to a cup of flour and beat it with a whisk on the KA mixer until aerated. Then I switch to a dough hook and add flour without measuring. i add a little at a time until the dough hook will work the flour without the dough sticking to the bottom of the bowl... well, not stick too much. Then I let the KA knead the dough for a few minutes before turning it out with a little flour to knead until it is smooth and elastic and can be rounded to form a smooth and stretchy top. At that point I oil and cover in a bowl until risen. I like my method because I can vary what I add like some milk or potato flour or egg and or oil and not worry about changing the recipe because I always add flour until I get a proper dough. So I do not understand what it means or how one figures 'hydration' percentage.

[Marmish]

I'm no expert, but when you look at your recipe, the amount of flour i s 100% ( using weights). Everything else is calculated based on that.

[tim]

Put another way,

The weight of the wet ingredients divided by the weight of the dry ingredients times 100 equals the hydration percentage.

Get out your scale.

Tim

[Heartsurgeon]

read this:

King Arthur Flour Baker's Percentage Primer

[Shalmanese]

If you're not measuring, then it's impossible to figure out the hydration percentage but I've found hydration percentages to be largely useless, except as a starting point anyway. At the end of the day, you're after a certain dough texture and that's going to vary by hydration depending on the humidity of the kitchen and a few other factors. Once you've made bread enough times to know what texture corresponds to what hydration, then you can do it largely by feel.

One thing to watch out for is that your dough will become stiffer over the course of half an hour as the flour autolyses. Just barely mix together a dough you think is too wet, let it sit for 30 minutes, then add the yeast and salt and knead.

[weinoo]

Put another way,

The weight of the wet ingredients divided by the weight of the dry ingredients times 100 equals the hydration percentage.

Get out your scale.

Tim

Not really. I don't believe you add all the dry ingredients together, you just divide by the weight of the flour.

[Norm Matthews]

OK then. Now I know.Thanks all. Since hydration is a ratio of water to flour, then I can see Shalmanese point. A given amount of water to a given amount of flour isn't really very informative since the kind of flour determines what amount of water is needed to make a dough. For instance, King Arthur bread flour will require several tablespoons less water to make an optimal dough than, say, White Lily All Purpose flour. A good hydration level for KA flour dough would make a batter with the other one.

Edited December 22, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Alcuin]

OK then. Now I know.Thanks all. Since hydration is a ratio of water to flour, then I can see Shalmanese point. A given amount of water to a given amount of flour isn't really very informative since the kind of flour determines what amount of water is needed to make a dough. For instance, King Arthur bread flour will require several tablespoons less water to make an optimal dough than, say, White Lily All Purpose flour. A good hydration level for KA flour dough would make a batter with the other one.

Hydration percentage is still useful. It provides a baseline hydration for different kinds of breads, and it provides benchmarks for you if you're just starting out.

As a baseline for hydration, you're going to do say 72% for a country boule and go from there. The feel that you might develop will allow you to tweak that but in my experience unless your conditions are extreme you won't have to. Most times, I just go with my 72% and stick with it instead of fiddling with the dough. 72% is well within the zone (except for on extremely humid days though, for an example of when I might add some tablespoons of flour).

As a benchmark, 80% hydration provides a very slack dough for ciabatta, while something like 55% makes a firm dough for bagels. It's good to have the numbers in your head when you're thinking about your bread because it allows you to break down the components of the bread to understand the formula while also helping you correct the formula for ambient conditions or fix other parts of it if it goes wrong (baker's percentages don't just cover hydration-everything is reckoned as a percentage of the flour making it easier to command the formula).

I found it very useful for helping me understand breads and I still think through the ratios even though I've developed a decent feel for the different types of dough.

[Blether]

Your method is very practical.

If I'm not mistaken, the % hydration in a traditional bread recipe is the ratio of water to flour, so 2lbs water to 3lbs flour is 2/3 or 67% hydration. Where there's some yeast, salt, a small amount of fat, you don't figure those into the calculation.

What your approach covers you for, in addition to varied amounts of different liquid ingredients, is the variation in the liquid absorption of different flours. Stronger flours need higher hydration to reach the same dough consistency. For someone like you who has the experience to judge the dough consistency by eye and hand, there's no anxiety about whether it will develop and bake out as intended.

Where bakers are talking about a standard flour, or about using flours that conform to an understood (gluten) strength standard, it is useful to discuss hydration percentages as a shorthand for the targetted dough consistency or 'wetness'. Though you are happy with consistent resuls for your 'usual' bread mixed to your 'usual' wetness, different levels of hydration do allow for desirable, and desirably different, results. Have you tried baking from a noticeably wetter or drier dough to see how it changes the bread ?

[Heartsurgeon]

for the most reproducible results, you need a consistent source of flour, and a consistent formula based upon weight.

A digital scale is invaluable.

checking the actual temperature of your oven with a thermometer can also be eye-opening.

[Norm Matthews]

I understand how important it is to weigh the flour and have a proven formula for consistent results. What I see most often though are recipes being very specific about the amount of water but lacking any information about what kind of flour to use.

Until one has experience in being able to know by look and feel that the dough it right, it is equally important to let newcomers know that the recipe works best with a flour that has a given protein level.

PS according to Shirley Corriher, ambient humidity plays a negligible role in flour absorption of moisture.

Edited December 22, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Alcuin]

I understand how important it is to weigh the flour and have a proven formula for consistent results. What I see most often though are recipes being very specific about the amount of water but lacking any information about what kind of flour to use.

Until one has experience in being able to know by look and feel that the dough it right, it is equally important to let newcomers know that the recipe works best with a flour that has a given protein level.

PS according to Shirley Corriher, ambient humidity plays a negligible role in flour absorption of moisture.

The great thing about formulas for baking is that it puts you well within the ballpark for what the bread should be like. You shouldn't have to tweak too much; if you do, the formula is flawed because it's not getting you close enough to the bread the formula should produce. With the right formula, you should be able to bake that bread and get a reasonably good to great result. From there, you can work on your bread whispering instincts to go from good/great to excellent/outstanding. But for the novice baker, worrying too much about protein percentages is a factor that might be over complicating the process. My advice is to buy some AP flour, whatever you like (I was using Gold Medal until I switched to KA when it went down to a comparable price). Then bake with that and when you can see where you can make improvements on the finished product, make them. If you can't see where to make the improvements, keep baking until you can.

And after all, some bread sage or other said that with bread baking, even what seem to be your worst efforts look to other people like something pretty great: fresh baked bread!

[Norm Matthews]

What I meant to say is that the person reading the recipe should be aware that there is Southern AP flour, Northern AP flour and National AP flour as well as bread flours and using the proper flour for the recipe makes a difference. Southern AP flour makes amazing biscuits but so-so bread. It is not because the 'formula' is flawed. The hydration level for it is much lower than for a bread flour. Using a Southern AP flour without realizing it can make following a bread recipe written by someone using King Arthur or Gold Medal problematic. The hydration rate will be significantly off. Too many times, I think, an inexperienced baker thinks they can just grab any flour off the shelf and it will work as well and any other. That should be part of the education process included in a well written recipe. You can't take it for granted that someone will just know it.

Edited December 22, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[tim]

Put another way,

The weight of the wet ingredients divided by the weight of the dry ingredients times 100 equals the hydration percentage.

Get out your scale.

Tim

Not really. I don't believe you add all the dry ingredients together, you just divide by the weight of the flour.

How absolutely humiliating of me to offer the incorrect formula. My apologies for missing the mark by sooooo much!