Hydration Percentage Calculator
Hydration is just water weight as a percentage of flour weight — find yours, or find the water you need to hit a target.
Flour & water → hydration %
Flour & target hydration % → water
What hydration feels like
| Hydration | Dough feel | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Under 60% | Stiff, easy to shape by hand | Bagels, pretzels, some pasta doughs |
| 60–65% | Firm but workable | Sandwich bread, dinner rolls |
| 65–75% | Soft, slightly tacky | Most artisan bread, baguettes |
| 75–85% | Sticky, slack, needs technique | Ciabatta, focaccia, other high-hydration loaves |
| Over 85% | Very wet, batter-like | Extreme open-crumb artisan loaves |
Why hydration is the single number that predicts dough behavior
Hydration % = (water weight ÷ flour weight) × 100. It's the single biggest factor in how a dough handles — higher hydration doughs are stickier and harder to shape, but produce a more open, airy crumb; lower hydration doughs are easier to work by hand but bake up tighter and denser. Knowing this one number tells you more about what to expect from a dough than almost anything else in the recipe.
Other liquids and wet ingredients count toward hydration too
Eggs, milk, oil, and any other liquid ingredient contribute water weight to the dough, not just the water added directly — a fully accurate hydration percentage for an enriched dough (brioche, challah) accounts for the water content of eggs and milk too, not just the measured water. For a simpler lean dough (just flour, water, salt, yeast), the straightforward calculation above is exactly right.
Flour type shifts how much water it can actually absorb
Higher-protein bread flour absorbs more water than lower-protein all-purpose or cake flour, so the "right" hydration for a workable dough shifts with the flour you're using — a 75% hydration recipe written for bread flour may feel noticeably wetter and harder to handle if made with all-purpose instead.