Calculating % Hydration of Your Sourdough

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When calculating your sourdough % hydration, everything is a percentage of the weight of the water to the flour (in grams).

Basic hydration = water / flour. This does not take into account how much starter you are using, so it is not the true hydration of your dough.

So if you have 350g of water and 500g of flour in your recipe, the basic hydration would be as follows:

Hydration = 350/500 = 70% hydration

The amount of starter changes hydration. The true % hydration would take into account how much starter you have in the recipe as well. Most people feed their starters with the same amount of flour and water. This means the starter is 100% hydration. .

So if you have 100g of 100% hydration starter, then 100g of starter = 50g flour and 50g water.

Let’s say your recipe is as follows:

100g starter (50 g water + 50 g flour)

350g water

500g flour

Overall hydration (which takes into account how much starter you are using) of this recipe would be:

Hydration = 400g water / 550g flour = 72.7% hydration

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