Baker's Hydration

Free Baker's Hydration calculator with clear step-by-step results.

About Baker's Hydration

Most recipes quote hydration as added water over added flour and quietly ignore the levain, which can shift the real figure by five points or more. This splits the starter into its flour and water components first, so the hydration number reflects the dough you are actually handling.

Formulas

Splitting the starter

Starter flour = starter / (1 + starter hydration); starter water = starter - starter flour

True hydration

Hydration % = (added water + starter water) / (added flour + starter flour) x 100

Worked example

With the default values below, Baker's Hydration returns True dough hydration of 70.91%. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Flour in the doughminimum 1 g: 1,000 g
Water addedminimum 0 g: 680 g
Levain or starterminimum 0 g: 200 g
Hydration of the starteraccepts 1–300 %: 100 %
Saltminimum 0 g: 20 g

Results

True dough hydration: 70.91% %
Total flour including starter: 1,100.0 g
Total water including starter: 780.0 g
Finished dough weight: 1,900.0 g

Step by step

1Values used
2Splitting the starter
3True hydration
4True dough hydration= 70.91 %
5Total flour including starter= 1,100.0 g
6Total water including starter= 780.0 g
7Finished dough weight= 1,900.0 g

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 5 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What hydration should I aim for?

Roughly 60-65% for a sandwich loaf, 70-80% for an open-crumb sourdough and 55-58% for bagels. Higher hydration needs stronger flour and more careful handling.

Does salt count toward hydration?

No. Salt is expressed as its own baker's percentage of flour - typically 1.8-2.2% - and only enters here as part of the finished dough weight.