The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

hydration

Schola's picture

Hydration of a starter

February 19, 2012 - 6:00am -- Schola
Forums: 
General

How can you work out what is the hydration of your leaven? I made my normal sourdough recipe the other day but used a mixture of flours to use up opened packets.  This time the slashes did not open up well and the bottom of the loaf had a big tear in it. Could the starter have been too wet? I do this as a hobby in a domestic kitchen and have to fit the process round my other kitchen activities and I don't have digital scales. So far I have been quite successful in my measuring/weighing/guess work. 

Any help would be appreciated thanks.

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flyingbaker's picture

All purpose to whole wheat hydration convertion.

January 31, 2012 - 7:56pm -- flyingbaker
Forums: 
Whole Grains

I've been scowering the web comparing recipies that use all purpose flour on the one hand and whole wheat on the other other. I also found a post that seem to explain that when you convert from all purpose you use the same amout of flour but add 5 teaspoons of water for each cup of flour you use.

All these figures and recipies seem to indicate that you should increase the hydration from all purpose to whole wheat at about 8% for baked breads. Does this make sense? If I mill my own wheat does that change the ratio any?

Thanks for any insight

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SCruz's picture

Why different starter hydrations

December 29, 2011 - 4:45pm -- SCruz
Forums: 
Sourdough and Starters

Is there a reason to make starter at one hydration or another, meaning that aside from it changing how much flour and water is used in a formulation, does the crumb or taste vary if the starter is at 50% hydration as compared to 100%? What is the effect of using stiff starter instead of liquid, or vice versa?

Jerry

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cmulder's picture

Hydration content considering other ingredients?

October 2, 2011 - 8:33pm -- cmulder
Forums: 
General

I understand that hydration percentage is important and it varies with type of bread. But how do you calculate it considering other ingredients. For example, For example I have a recipe that requires flour, oats, wheat germ, gluten, maple syrup, oil, cinnamon, buttermilk plus salt and yeast. I want to cut the recipe in half or to one-third. I know you can't just mathematically cut everything. So how do you calculate hydration levels considering other ingredients.

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kristakoets's picture

baker's math and leaven percentages

July 13, 2011 - 1:01pm -- kristakoets
Forums: 
Artisan Baking

Hi all,

Two questions for all you experts :-)

#1 Regarding baker's percentages....For my Desem-type loaf (not made per Laurel...my own bastardization, mostly from Alan Scott) if my flour weight ( in this case 100% whole wheat) is 375 g and my leaven weight is 225g (100% whole wheat, 100% hydro) and my water weight is 283g and my salt weight is 10g....is my overall hydro  81% (if I calculate in the weights of water and flour in my leaven) or is it 75% (if I do not calculate the weights of water and flour in my leaven)?

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cranbo's picture

dough hydration...for pasta?

June 12, 2011 - 12:47pm -- cranbo
Forums: 
Advanced Topics

I know, a bit unrelated to baking but...I'm doing some research about pasta dough, and was wondering what the hydration of pasta dough should be. The recipe I've used in the past is one from Jamie Oliver, which is 1 egg per 100g of flour is pulsed in a food processor until it comes together in a breadcrumb texture. 

Assuming 1 large egg is ~75% hydration, and 1 large egg weighs about 57g, there should be about 42g of water available from the egg. This makes the pasta dough hydration (according to the formula) around 42%. Does this seem correct?

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goose13's picture

Hydration adjustment in recipe

June 5, 2011 - 1:29pm -- goose13
Forums: 
Sourdough and Starters

I recently started a 60% hydration starter due to some problems I have been having with my 100%. It looks like it's coming along great but I had a question regarding recipe adjustments, and I couldn't get a definitive answer using the search. I did find a spreadsheet however, but it's a bit daunting at the moment, and I haven't quite wrapped my head around it yet.

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