Bakers Percentage Hydration
Calculator
Results
- Hydration (%)
- 70
- Flour and water weight (g)
- 850
Cooking results
| Hydration (%) | 70 |
| Flour and water weight (g) | 850 |
formula-map diagram
- Hydration (%)
- 70
- Flour and water weight (g)
- 850
Formula breakdown
Formula
hydration % = water ÷ flour × 100 (baker's percentage)= 70
Note
Simplified model: results are standard culinary ratios and stated per-kilogram rates. Real ovens, flours, ingredients and food-safety requirements vary, so use a thermometer and your own judgement.
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See all →Frequently asked questions
What does baker's percentage actually mean?+
Every ingredient in a bread formula is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight, which is always set to 100%, so water at 70% hydration means the water weighs 70% of the flour's weight, regardless of the batch's total size.
Why use flour weight as the baseline instead of the total dough weight?+
Flour is the structural backbone of bread, so expressing every other ingredient relative to it lets bakers compare and scale recipes consistently across any batch size, which wouldn't work as cleanly if percentages were based on shifting total dough weight.
How does hydration percentage affect the dough's handling and result?+
Lower hydration (55-65%) gives a firmer, easier-to-handle dough suited to sandwich bread, while higher hydration (75%+) gives a wetter, stickier dough that's harder to shape but produces a more open, irregular crumb typical of artisan and ciabatta-style breads.
Does the water in other ingredients, like eggs or milk, count toward hydration?+
For precise formulas, yes: liquid ingredients beyond plain water contribute their own water content to total hydration, so an enriched dough with milk and eggs has more total hydration than the recipe's stated water percentage alone suggests.
Why would I convert a recipe I already like into baker's percentages?+
Converting lets you scale the recipe to any batch size while preserving its exact proportions, and it makes it easy to compare your recipe's hydration and other ratios against other formulas to understand why they behave differently.