Sourdough Hydration Explained

Hydration is one of the most discussed aspects of sourdough baking. Understanding it gives you control over your bread's texture, crumb, and crust.

What is Hydration?

Hydration refers to the ratio of water to flour in your dough, expressed as a percentage. A 75% hydration dough has 75g water for every 100g flour.

Hydration Ranges

60-65%: Very stiff dough, easy to handle, tight crumb. Good for beginners.

70-75%: Standard hydration, balance of handling and openness. Most recipes fall here.

78-85%: High hydration, more challenging to handle, more open crumb potential.

85-100%: Very high hydration, requires advanced technique, extremely open crumb.

How Hydration Affects Your Bread

Crumb Structure

Higher hydration generally creates larger, more irregular holes. Lower hydration produces a tighter, more uniform crumb.

Crust

Higher hydration doughs tend to produce thinner, crispier crusts. Lower hydration creates thicker crusts.

Handling

Wetter doughs are stickier and require different techniques like wet hands and minimal flour.