hydration

Newbie Q on Hydration and Additions: Flax, oat, wheat germ, wheat bran, polenta

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I am a newbie who loves to experiment. From my reading and experimentation I have learned that successful breads roughly have a 3 to 1 ratio of flour to liquid. And that dough can tolerate a certain amount of "additions" such as nuts, raisins, sundried tomatoes, etc. Most recipes that call for additions have 1 to 2 Tbs. per cup of flour. So, my question is. which of these things function as flour (have to be counted towards the hydration) and which ones are additions?

final hydration formula

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Advanced Topics

I'm no math whiz, but I'm trying to figure out my overall hydration, and could use some help with the math.

Let's assume I have 1000g of dough
700g (70% of dough) is at 55% hydration
300g (30% of dough) is at 100% hydration (my starter)

What would my total dough hydration be?

May 6, 2010 - 6:43pm

Doc Tracy

Some days you should just start over-

Some days you should just go back to bed and start over. I'm in the process of trying to make Hamelman's cinnamon oatmeal raisin bread (modified with sourdough starter). While building the final dough I noted that the water on the scale seemed to be an enormous amount. So much so that I even grabbed another container, re-tared the scale and reweighed it. No, it seems to weigh out fine.

Final dough ends up looking like thin pancake batter. About 3kgs of it!! I'm not sure what I did wrong, not enough flour or too much water but I've been slowly adding more flour for that past hour. I'm wondering if my scale locked up or something? This is going to be one enormous batch of dough!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can work this out. Would have to happen on a recipe that is more complicated than flour, water and salt, wouldn't it? Now I'm wondering how much I should up the raisins and cinnamon, if I should add more oil/honey.

At least the fresh ground whole wheat flour (first time using the grinder) looks and smells wonderful. Can't wait to try it. Hope I haven't totally mucked it up.

Read more about Some days you should just start over-
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Levain Angst

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Sourdough and Starters

I don't know if this is the right place, but I just baked my first loaf with a new levain. I made it according to Dan Lepard's instructions in "The Handmade Loaf". It looks exactly like the pictures in his book, and did rise. However, my bread did not. Well, it rose a little bit over four hours (not doubled in height, that's for sure, but I put it in because I needed to go to bed!) and it rose and spread out a bit more in the oven. Certainly those babies are active. But perhaps not active enough?

The New York Times article of Feb. 24 on wet dough

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Artisan Baking

If people have already discussed this article then by all means delete this thread. If it has not been discussed, people may wish to do so.

The actual article when I closely read it bespeaks a certain ambivalence re the process.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/dining/24curious.html?scp=2&sq=harold%20mcgee&st=cse

hrdration

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General

What does high hydration percentage on my loaf mean.

105% hydration for fresh ground?

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Whole Grains

I just spoke with a talented baker who uses 105% hydration on his very freshly ground grains. By that I take it he means he uses 10.5 ounces of water for every 10 ounces of flour. I followed this ratio in my own home and came up with a loaf that was so wet, it looked like pancake batter. This is much wetter than the "tacky not sticky" standard I've seen elsewhere on this site.

Can anyone explain why a baker might use such a high hydration percentage? Could his flour have been that much drier than mine?

Poolish -- First "Flight" -- Questions -- All-Poolish Loaf? Adjusting for Hydration after Soak, and, and....

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Artisan Baking

'Just tried to do a sourdough loaf with presoak and had it end up /very/ doughy. I've been learning for a few weeks now because most commercially-available breads are absolute garbage health-wise, and the good stuff (from the farmers' market or frozen at the natural foods -stores) runs a good $6-per loaf. I'm determined to learn and not afraid of making mistakes (as you'll soon learn.)

Anyway, trial went something like:

High Hydration Boule: Explosive Fermentation (and size)?

Forums:

Sourdough and Starters

Hi All.

Playing with different hydration rates, to get a loaf I'm really happy with. Very puzzled by my latest loaf:

Levain Boule - high hydration

Bittman/Lahey No-Knead Bread hydration

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General

So I've made no-knead bread before and was a bit disappointed. But recently I got reinspired to try the Bittman/Lahey version as published in the NYT:

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1 5/8 cups water
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

hydration

Newbie Q on Hydration and Additions: Flax, oat, wheat germ, wheat bran, polenta

final hydration formula

Some days you should just start over-

Levain Angst

The New York Times article of Feb. 24 on wet dough

hrdration

105% hydration for fresh ground?

Poolish -- First "Flight" -- Questions -- All-Poolish Loaf? Adjusting for Hydration after Soak, and, and....

High Hydration Boule: Explosive Fermentation (and size)?

Bittman/Lahey No-Knead Bread hydration

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