Are You Calculating Sourdough Hydration Correctly? Beginner Bakers BEWARE!
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- I know this can kick off a heated debate, or certainly seems to in the online groups… But I’m interested to know what you think? I know which side of the fence I sit… I don’t think you can really sit on top the fence, isn’t it one side or the other?
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Should the starter be included in the calculation of our sourdough hydration? I think this can be confusing for new bakers and if there isn’t one general consensus, it’s good to know the different ways people calculate hydration, so we can adjust if necessary.
I’m really interested to know what you think, or of you think it makes a difference? Are you a beginner baker, does this confuse you?
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What I really appreciate is your extensive knowledge base. So much of what's on social media are well meaning people giving bad advice.
Thank you for addressing this. I always wondered if it was a big deal or not.
I do. Taking the time to understand and use the bakers percentages helped me to understand why it matters. With this info, tweaking the amount of ingredients helped get my recipe dialed in to give the best results with the flour I use, and the temps in our area. Been following you for a while now, these videos have been a great asset!
That's good news Steve, it certainly helps in making adjustments easier. Pleased you are enjoying the videos :)
Brilliant video I’m getting a new idea now thanks and many thanks
Thank you for helping me successfully bake a sour dough loaf!! You tips on keeping the dough uncovered a couple of times during the fermentation made all the difference in the world. My dough was firmer and made it easier to rise and hold its shape. Wish I could include a photo!!
Thank you for setting the record straight. I have always added the starter in to the calculation for proper hydration of a dough. It does count as you begin to scale the recipe up or down for yield. My dad was an engineer and was very precise when doing anything including his hobby, baking bread. I actually have a spreadsheet to help calculate the hydration for just this reason. Thank you again. Your videos are excellent.
Cheers EJ
I suppose for the home baker this is good to start with. I’ve found that after years of baking regular loaves I get the feel of my dough and seldom does either the dough weight or the hydration change. The main thing I’ve found is when I change the brand of flour that I need to adjust the feel. My starter is always 1 cup flour to ½ cup water. Then my levain is two heaping soup spoons of ripe starter to ½ cup water and 1 cup flour. Our Canadian plain flour is as hard as American bread flour so why make a fuss over that. Also I sift my bran from my whole wheat because unless it’s stone ground the flakes are too aggressive with the sourdough fermentation as the sourdough “digests the gluten not the starch so much. This was a tip from Trevor Wilson this also makes a wetter dough I guess. But my loaves come out perfect every time.
I keep thinking of our grand of yore who had only barns to work with ( if they could afford them) or just the regular starter. I doubt much that they knew how to calculate percentage. I’m a dunce when it comes to fiddling with math. And because I’ve stopped weighing my feedings (they were always to wet when I did and they would eat up all the gluten by the time I came to incorporate them then my rise was so flat! I wish the instructors would also emphasize the eminent importance of “feel”. I’ve found that percentage alone and weighing alone are only as accurate as the humidity of her room and the flour in the bag. But feel never fails!
This is all about communication. Absolutely if you want to accurately capture hydrated flour levels, the starter is important (but different flours will also behave differently for the same water ratio).
Bakers % are always given as a fraction of dry flour though, and consistency or at least clarity in how you communicate recipes is key. So the water in your recipe is 66%. The starter is 34%. You can state it’s a 100% starter. This way anyone can scale a recipe up or down without getting confused by “hydration”. As you’ve said in previous videos, a 70% hydrated whole-wheat is quite different to white flour. But as a recipe, the bakers % isn’t ambiguous.
Thanks for your awesome videos! I’ve been baking sourdough for 10 years, and have never managed to get great results from fridge ferments until I saw your videos.
Cheers!
Thank you so much. Very clear explanation
I followed your 'no knead' video to the T and it's the best loaf I've ever made.
That's awesome David, pleased you enjoyed the recipe
Hey mate, long time no see, so many videos in the past months !!! Hope u have a great new year :)
I’m with you. If calculating hydration is the task, all the water and flour has to be included in the calculation.
I figure my hydration WITH the starter as you do, and YES absolutely it makes a big difference! Handling, loft crumb the whole shebang.
Simplify!!!! Make starter same hydration. WOW genius
that's exactly the way I calculate it, add all the water and flour. Starter/Levain and water/flour main recipe. If I think the percentage is too high I just reduce the recipe water amount. Most of my breads are 64-68%, I don't like big holes......Good explanation on your vid...
Thank you for the video. Have been following you for a while now and learning a lot. If I add 20 grams Malt syrop extract, how would you calculate that? Should I take 20 grams from the water? Thank you!
Of course it should be included. What’s the debate? The starter includes a material amount of water in the recipe. Why it matters? Because the hydration amount w/o accounting for the starter will be very misleading as to the doughs behavior.
One way to get an accurate account of one’s starter hydration is to feed your starter and dry it on parchment paper when it’s real active. When dry, mix a known quantity of water with a known quantity of dry flour and dry starter. When you know , precisely, that your starter is half water and half flour (starter is just “activated” flour) you can make accurate calculations to get consistency in your loaves.
For example , Combine 50 grams of dehydrated starter with 50 grams of flour and 100 grams of water and let it sit until active (about 21 hours). Then ,you’ll know your starter is half water. Feed it accordingly and you’ll always know where you stand. That’s what worked for me.
I always use the true hydration. I have difficulty with shaping if my dough is over hydrated and I do want to push hydration as much as possible. The flours that I have access to are not that high in protein content and do take as much water as many videos or recipes might show so I have to be careful. Bearing these things in mind my own spreadsheet shows both nominal and true hydration but it is the true hydration that I always regard as correct.
Just now subscribe after watching this brilliant video please could you conduct another one for how to have a good proof for my sourdough bread
The starter must be included in the overall hydration of the recipe.
Okay, coming late to the party.... And I agree with you Philip, 100% (that's including... )
I do have a question though, some recipes include extra ingredients, such as malt powder, or milk. My thinking is that powders that hydrate (absorb water) should be included with the flour, and liquids with the water.
Thanks for the awesome video.. But i have a problem.. In my country.. I don't have a strong flour..protein ratio is between (10-11.3)..so my question is.. Dose your no knead sourdough bread recipe work with the same flour .. Water.. Starter.. Salt.. Hydration... Etc. (measurements).. Still can work for me ( using these weak protein flours) .. Or what should i change regarding to all above mentioned ingredients .?? Can you please help me out.. Lots of thanks in advance
I think it is more of an experiment to find the right hydration for your dough, as the same percentage of water you use can give you a more or less stiff dough when using different flours.
Great topic. All of the sourdough books that I own teach that the water and flour in your starter must be included in your hydration calculation. It is important to keep track of the ratios of your starter. Most recipes will ask if your starter is 100% hydration. I live in a very dry climate so I will increase the water percentage by 2 to 3%. I hold back that additional water and add it towards the end of the kneading process. The summer can be the driest time however winter if there has been a lack of rain can be just as dry in the summer months. It comes down to the feel of the dough.
That's interesting Blair. I guess the dry climate impacts on flour too
I haven’t before, but now I do
Great job however what if I’m not using 1:1:1 and I’m using different ratio i . e 1:8 :8 how to calculate then
Thanks for bringing up such an important aspect of making Sourdough. I used to think it wasn't important to include the starters hydration either but when you consider the OVERALL hydration of the loaf it makes total sense. For me this gets a bit complicated as I don't make my starter to equal ratios. Still I will just divide how much flour/water from the total weight.
Hey Mike. That's the way. It's really good to bear in mind :)
@@CulinaryExploration enjoying your videos. I only have a smallish oven so have to bake within limits, hopefully one day I can upgrade to one with a bigger space.
I absolutly agree. You should take in the account the total amount of water and the total amount of flour and that should therefore include the amount of flour and water in the starter.
I absolutely agree. You should take the amount of water and flour in the starter in consideration. If you only use 5% starter then it doesn't make a huge difference but if you take 40% starter, which I do for some ryebreads, then it makes a massive difference. Then it also matters if you use a liquid or stiff starter. And a difference of 20-30 grams water, in a recipe with 350-400 grams of flour, makes big difference, at least for me. Thanks for the video!
Am confused.. I know how to get 100% starter hydration.. but what happens if I want to do 20% starter hydration.. I know I’ve to use less water but how do I calculate it in terms of ratio and in grams.. appreciate the explanation..
That was an excellent explanation and helped clear up a lot of my confusion. But with the purpose of Baker's % to scale up or down, how do you calculate the amount of flour and water to use? I'm assuming you would need to know the baker's % of water and flour in your sourdough starter? (I ask this because I don't have a 100% liquid starter) And i'm trying to wrap my mind around this, so would I need to know the final flour weight in order to make the proper adjustment of flour to use in the recipe by figuring out the weight of flour & liquid of the starter? I hope that made sense LOL. It's driving me crazy.
I think it matters only when you are baking unknown recipe first time, if the dough is too dense next time, you adjust the hydration. You will have to do it anyway if the flour has a different protein content. So, practice is most important.
I tried to work it out and thought why bother, 500gm flour 350 water 100 starter and 15 sally and the loaves come out as good as a pro bakery about 72%
Absolutely include it. How’s this even a question?
Yes, I do it the same as you, just use a slightly different equation, it's all good. Lately, I've been doing mostly bread with fruit yeast for which including the preferment is even more critical as it's 100 grams of each, fruit yeast water and flour.
That sounds lovely Martha! Just out of interest, what equation do you use?
@@CulinaryExploration Most of the time, 75%
Yes, Definitely. It correctly informs the beginners as well as the novices
Cheers Zvi, great to hear from you :)
WO watching, I do this...total dough x 20% So if I'm using 640 of flour 75% hydration is 480..Am I right?
its about time set down and explain it thank you
Cheers Jim!
Every formula in the planet of bread and especially Sourdough bread calculates the water+flour included in the starter. I think this misunderstanding comes from the use of preferments in the bread formulas that use commercial yeast. In these formulas the preferment (poolish, biga, e.t.c.) originates from the total water and flour of the formula and therefore when added into the final dough doesn't increase the initial hydration. Now in sourdough things are a bit more complicated especially when you take into consideration that enzymatic action during starter's fermentation will break down gluten and thus releasing more water into the starter. Water that normally would be bonded with gliadin and glutamin forming gluten. Therefore many times we get the feeling that despite we are pretty sure that our hydration calculations are on the spot the dough looks very shaggy and difficult to handle. This is because the additional free water of the starter is added now to the water of our formula. It's not water that comes magically from somewhere, it was always there but attached to gluten bonds that enzymes destroyed and therefore it's now free. Unfortunately this is a factor that can't be calculated because every flour is different in terms of water absorption and every starter has it's own "appetite". To make the long story short, not only the water+flour of the starter must be calculated in the formula but the dough that uses sourdough for the fermentation shall always look and feel like a higher hydration compared to a dough of the same hydration that doesn't use sourdough.
I think it should matter but seems standard in videos I've seen to exclude.
BTW my biggest problem is not insufficient spring it is dough to runny n weak. My dough sags it is liquid at 70% hyd.
If you use constant innoculation rate you can ignore it but I notice you use more than 30%
Bakers % is BASED on each ingredient being a % of the TOTAL weight of the flour. You can't ignore the ingredients in the starter as they contribute to its total weight. To use to argument that such a small amount of starter will not affect the outcome is disproved by your calculations in the video. As you say in the video the difference in 66% to a 70% hydration is massive so it can't be ignored...
I always include the starter in the hydration, use at bit les water, in my bake While use my starter. I always, use 500g flour 350g water and 12g salt, 100g starter a High Hydration.
Yes, of course. The real question is, if you want to calculate in the conversion of sugars to ethanol during the starter maturation. ;-)
Come on then Oliver, don't be shy... have you got a cheeky little equation for that one? :)
My starter is 100% hydration, if I substitute 90g wholewheat, I increase water to 260g (73.8%). When I was in Asia, Korean high protein flour does not absorb water like Robinhood, I had to decrease water by feel. My friend's starter is 76% hydration, she just adjusts the flour and water in the main dough accordingly. - Becky
Yes, I do include the water and the flour of the starter in the total calculation of the hydration.
Cheers Hani, hope all is well with you
When I calculate hydration in a dough, I take half the weight of the starter as flour and half the weight as water. How else can I be sure what the numbers really are?
That's good practice. I'm interested in how you account for your eggs?
@@CulinaryExploration Oops. I edited the comment after you replied. I count the eggs as water weight. A large egg is nominally 50g. Butter? I'm not sure. Likewise with oil.
@@fathersonandskillet Ah no worries, thought I was going crazy there for a moment
I always add the water and the flour of the starter into the total water and flour before calculate the percentage of the hydration.
Good job, cheers for letting me know what you are up to!
What if idk what my starter’s hydration is in the first place?
If you aren't worried and want to bake by feel then there is nothing wrong with that at all. But if you want to be specific and be able to calculate hydration then you can adjust your starter feeding ratio. From this moment on you would feed it with equal quantise of flour and water. Depending on how much starter you use to seed / inoculate the future feeds, your starter will be at pretty much 100% in the next couple of feeds. I hope this answers your question.
the starter has to be factored in ,especially since winter inoculation needs to be increased compared with summer . So to keep the recipe honest the starter needs to be part fo the equation
What about if your starter is a stiff starter?
Hi Lolita, it's not really a question of how wet of dry the starter is. The quantity of both the flour and the water in the starter will affect the hydration equation. If you want to know what your hydration is then you should include the starter in your sums. Hope this helps.
Yes. I always think because the sourdough adds a considerable amount of water and flour.
It does! And the amount of starter / Levain can always vary. Cheers for stopping by
Can you make a video on inoculation percentage too.
For sure, if its something you'd find useful :)
@@CulinaryExploration looking forward
Even if you only do the same recipe, week in week out, you will eventually need to include starter hydration when (not if) you make a mistake and you add more/less flour/water.
Also, a correctly configured spreadsheet does not care if you do the same thing at home every time or change parameters in your bakery often, such as inoculation, hydration or type of flour. 🥖
Cheers EH, and you're quite right, spreadsheets do not care!
Sometimes I do include it sometimes not. It's not a life or death situation.
Trying both methods and see the result and let you you how it works out.
Cheers Nick!
@@CulinaryExploration kept the 71% calculation hydration process, had a beautiful sourdough bread, so works a treat, thanks for the guidance.
Most artisan bakeries I've worked at do include the levain in their dough calculations.
Cheers Carl, are there some that don't? If so how do they calculate?
@@CulinaryExploration occasionally some may calculate it like you mentioned in the video, a straight percentage from the total flour weight.
Most tend to have bread formulas on excel and it will calculate the quantities you need to make the number of loaves you require. And in this, they include levain weight in the hydration amount.
@@CarlPotts335 It makes sense to me and I can't really see another way to do it. As you mentioned, when you calculate for a specific target dough weight, the levain weight needs to be included in the calculations.
I do (include the starter), but as long as you do it the same way for continuity it shouldn't matter.
Not including the starter doesn't make sense if you want an actual % for hydration.
I guess that sums it up really.
@@frankfurter7260 Apparently, you are in furious agreement? But who can really tell : /
Yes - of course because starters may contain different amounts and different ratios of water and flour
I'm definitely with you Jonathan, but I'll be shocked if everyone agrees. Hope you are doing well
Should the starter be included in the calculation for sourdough hydration?
Yes.
I don't include oil or eggs in the water content, because, as far as I can tell, oil and eggs are not absorbed by the flour (flour hydration), they coat it.
Short & sweet
@@CulinaryExploration Edited to 'War and Peace'-length after reading other comments).
A bit late to the party. But starter must be included most calculators you can add the starter hydration for people who make slacker starters. Also I’m fairly sure Richard Bertinet includes it. And that’s good enough for me lol
That would be good enough for me too Jeff - lol
How can anyone tell an expert that they are wrong, when the experts food turns out to perfection?
That's very kind, although I think it's good to challenge. The viewers on my no knead video were truly confused about the hydration calculation.
Oh fiddle-dede how about I just let you make me a loaf of bread and let me enjoy it with melted butter LOL
LOL, I can do that :)
Late to the party here, but hope still relavent. Syntactically, I think calculationg hydration based soley on the flour and water is right. Bakers' percentatges are based on the ratio by weight to the total quantity of flour and nothing else. That makes the calculation easy and makes for an intuative common baseline. I like to think the starter is (at this point) its own element and the ingredients of that element shouldn't be a factor.
Then again I did have to take the water content of the starter into account when I converted my bagel recipe to sourdough rather than dry active soooo....
Yes it should be included when discussing with others or experimenting.
As the sourdough own hydratation percentage along with the innoculation percentage can change things a lot
But if you're at home and only do the same thing, something basic like 20% inoculation 100% hydratation starter each time and that's it
It would be a waste of time and effort to include the starter in your calculs, you already know what range of percentage of hydratation in the dough goes well with this setting
Couldn't agree more, its nice to bake by feel and not worry about weighing too. But if you are going to the trouble of calculating the hydration I think it should be done the correct way, otherwise, what's the point?
And this is the way I have always calculated my NK sourdough. Batch = 500 g flour, 320 g water, 200 g of 100% starter. Calculates to 70%, starter must be included, because in the final issue, it’s part of the dough!
I always count the starter hydration into the overall recipe. If you use a small amount of starter then it doesn't really matter that much but if you use a high hydration and, say, 20% starter, the overall hydration will make a big difference and your flour might not be able to take it.
Cheers Kevin :)