
They undertake a slow but steady growth, with less risk of peaking too early. Stiffer starters are slower to rise than those with higher hydration. A stiff starter has a larger amount of flour than water. Sometimes recipes will use a stiff starter, especially if they are an enriched dough like sourdough cinnamon rolls. You can play around with the water ratios in the starter, but 100% is a great base amount. The consistency will be thick pancake batter. When feeding a starter at 100% hydration, feed it equal parts flour and water. This is a starter at 100% hydration level. The sourdough starterĪ great sourdough starter ratio of water to flour, is one using a 1:1:1 ratio (starter:flour: water). However, with a healthy starter and a good stretch and fold method under your belt, a high hydration dough is great for airy bread like sourdough ciabatta, sourdough pizza or sourdough focaccia. A higher hydration dough in this range is very sticky and can be difficult to handle if you're a beginner. The increase of water leads to a softer, less dense bread.ħ6-90%. It's a wetter dough that is sticky, but it's easy to manage using a stretch and fold method, with wet hands. This range of hydration is great for a basic sourdough loaf. It can be used for a loaf bread too but it makes a more dense bread.Ħ1-75%. A lower hydration dough like this is used in a sourdough recipe like bagels and sourdough pretzels. At the lower end of 50% it's quite stiff. A dough with a low hydration like this is thick and easy to knead by hand. Here is a guide to different hydration amounts.ĥ0-60%. The hydration level of sourdoughįor the home baker it can be really helpful to know how the hydration of your dough changes not only the dough structure but the baked bread as well. This calculator will also give you the final dough weight, and the salt amount (at 1.8%). This can be changed if you are using a stiff starter. This is a starter that is made using an equal weight of water and equal weight of flour. The default sourdough starter hydration is set as a 100% hydration starter. From this, the total water component is divided by the total weight of flour to determine what percentage they are of the total flour weight. When using baker’s math, the flour amount is always set to 100%. This sourdough calculator will work out the level of hydration in your dough using baker’s math.
