Bread Baking Hydration Calculator
Baker's percentages help you scale and understand bread recipes. Enter your flour, water, salt, and yeast weights to calculate hydration and other key ratios.
Hydration Percentage
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Hydration %—
Salt % of flour—
Yeast % of flour—
Total dough weight (g)—
About this calculator
Calculate the hydration percentage of your bread dough based on flour and water weights, plus salt and yeast baker's percentages.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is baker's percentage?
Baker's percentage expresses every ingredient as a percentage of the total flour weight, which is always 100%. This makes recipes easy to scale up or down.
What hydration percentage should I use?
Most sandwich breads use 60-65% hydration. Artisan and rustic breads often use 70-85% hydration for a more open, chewy crumb.
Why does hydration matter?
Higher hydration doughs produce a more open crumb and chewier texture but are stickier and harder to handle. Lower hydration is easier to shape but denser.