Knob
Hydration
You might say: how wet the dough is, water percentage
The water percentage of dough relative to flour.
- What it does
- Shows how wet or stiff dough will be and affects mixing, strength development, folding, shaping and baking.
- Ask
- How much water can this flour take for this bread?
- Typical
- Around 60% is low hydration; 80% or higher is high hydration.
- Trouble
- A high-hydration dough can be slack and sticky; a low-hydration dough can be stiff.
What to look for
- A graduated vessel shows the water level
- The dough sample ranges from stiff and shaggy to glossy and slack
Connections
- Raises: Crumb structure
Sources
- Jeffrey Hamelman, Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, ch. 1, p. 13
Hydration is the percentage of water in a dough relative to the flour.
- Martin Philip, Hydration in bread dough, explained, Hydration in bread dough, explained
Hydration affects doughs at every step of the breadmaking process, from how we mix and develop strength to how we fold, shape, and even bake.
- Martin Philip, Hydration in bread dough, explained, Hydration in bread dough, explained
If I go to make a recipe with all-purpose flour and a hydration percentage in the 75% to 85% range, I know before even mixing the dough that it will likely be slack or sticky. … High hydration refers to doughs that are often in excess of 80% hydration. … At the other end of the spectrum are doughs that fall around 60% hydration, which would be considered low hydration or “stiff.”
Use it on your project
teardown-apply: hold "Hydration" (hydration) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/bread/ against my project
Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.
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