September 24, 2013 - 5:50am
Trying to understand different %'s of hydration when making bialys
I started making bialys again after about 3-4 months and boy did I miss them. Somebody had sent me their recipe with the water to flour hydration like 68-70%. I've been using along 55% water to flour. Trying to understand when you use say 55%, 60% and 68% hyrdration water to flour, what does that do the final product of the bialy. The higher you go will it be much softer light or chewy? or the opposite. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, HL
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There is much information about hydration levels already on this site. Try using the search box in the upper right corner of the page. Just quickly though, higher hydration, in general, leads to a more open crumb, and a lighter texture. I don't know about bialys, but I would expect 55% to make a dense, chewy texture, like a good bagel, while 70% can make a lighter, softer bread, like sandwich bread. There are definitely lots of other variables that determine the actual results you will get, but on a sliding scale, this is how you could expect the bread to trend, all other things being equal.
thanks David, I haven't been on this site in a while and forgot about the search engine. I'll definitely dot that and thanks for your quick insight about the hydration levels. I'll guess I'll have to experiment on my own about this. HL