The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Queston about the Hydration of my Rye Starter.

PetraR's picture
PetraR

Queston about the Hydration of my Rye Starter.

I have a 60g Rye Starter which I used to feed with 60g of Rye Flour and 60g of Water.

Is that 100% Hydration? I believe it is since I feed at a 1:1:1 Ratio.

I found the Starter to stiff so I changed to 60g of Rye Flour and 80g of Water, which is much easier for me to work with.

Is this a 120% Hydration ?

Thank you for your help.

Petra

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

It's 133% hydration.

80g water divided by 60g flour and multiplied by 100 gives the %age.

PetraR's picture
PetraR

Thank you so much. Now I know. :)

133% works great for me.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

of your starter.  If the 60g if seed is 100% hydration than adding equal amounts if flour and water will keep it at 100% hydration.

My rye starter is 6o% hydration so 10 g of starter is 6g flour and 4 water.  Adding 10 g each of flour and water to that would be 14 g water /16 g flour or 87.5% hydration.  Just tale the total weight of water and divide it by the total weight of flour to get your hydration.

If you want to make an 800 g loaf of bread at 72% hydration just divide the 800 g by 1.72 (1 is the 100% if flour and .72 the percent of water. 800/1.72 = 465 g of flour and 800-465 = 335 g of water (335/465 = 72%)

Happy Baking with Math!

PetraR's picture
PetraR

Yes , in the beginning I kept it to equal amounts of Starter, Flour and Water, so 100% Hydration.

You lost me with the other Math.

I am truly not dumb lol.

When I bake a bread it is made with 500g of White Flour.

I make a Leaven the Night before, using 1 Tbsp of my Rye Starter and add 20% of the flour that the recipe calls for.

So that would be 100g which I divide by 2 which is 50g.

So I feed , to that Tbsp of Starter, 50g of Flour and 50 g of Water, let it sit over Night and than add all the rest to it.

That is the only Math I ever understood when it comes to sourdough lol.

How to make a Leaven for the amount of Bread Flour you want to use with must a small amount of Starter. My Bread looks great.

PetraR's picture
PetraR

I have copied your Answer now and saved it so that I can easy find it again and re read it.

I am a bit slow I think.

Let say, just for the fun of it.

I want a 83 % Hydration Dough.

I would go by this formular.

500 dividet by 1.83=273   500-273=227   227/273=83%   ????

Gosh I am glad my iPhone has a Calculator lol

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I look for the easy way...  

If this was 1000g flour (1 kg)  83% hydration would be 830g water.  Half of one kilo is 500g so take half of 830g or 415g.   no calculator   old math   By the time I write that out... a formula,  I've got dough rising.  

cerevisiae's picture
cerevisiae

If you'd like to work more on getting comfortable with the math, Wild Yeast has a tutorial section with exercises that you can use for practice. I find it's a lot easier when you don't have to invent your own problems (and can check your answers).

PetraR's picture
PetraR

Thank you for the link.

I have an * Sourdough * App on my iPhone that works out the Bakers %, but I was not sure about the Hydration of my Starter. 

I know now.

And I also now know how to work out they Hydration of my Dough's. yeahhhh

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

that for ever 100g of flour, one needs 83g of water.    5x100= 500      5 x 83= 415

------------------------------(my editing)----------------------------------------------------------------------

500g total dough?  

Yes, what you did works easy enough.  Will come out a little heavier with salt and yeast added. (and anything else)  Took me a minute to figure out your formula:  total dough weight (500g) divided by dough ingredients (flour 1.00 + water .83)* = flour weight.  Subtract flour weight from total weight to find water weight.  

(And if you loose track of which one is the flour, because the hydration is lower than 100%, the smaller number will be the water.)  Then divide the water weight by the flour weight (x 100) to double check the math and see if it comes out to  83%.  (I wrote all that info for others reading the thread.  I know you know what you're doing.)  :)

*1.0 = 100%   1.0 + .83 = 1.83 = 183%  

PetraR's picture
PetraR

Thank you so much for all your help Mini Oven * love that name *  it really did help me.