Hydration?

[Bende]

Hey guys,

I'm new, and I'd love an explanation of what is meant by the level of hydration in a dough recipe (58%, 60%, etc).  And for my standard dough recipe with AP flour and cold rise in the fridge for a few days, what hydration level should I use?

Thanks,

Bende

[chickenparm]

Its how much water is used mixed in with the flour.The Higher the hydration,the stickier the dough is.

A stickier dough is a bit harder to handle and shape,but with some bench flour,its not too hard to do so.

Try a 60% hydration and see if how you like it.I made many dough experiments and tried different hydrations until I found the one I liked the best or worked the best with a certain flour.

[patnx2]

Hydration is the % of water in relation to flour. So flour is always 100% and multiply the amount of flour by the hydration you want. An example is 100 g. of flour at 60% is 60 grams of water. It is hard to think in terms that 100% is not all of the recipe. There are lots of discussions of bakers percentages on this site. Hope this helps .Patrick

[Pete-zza]

Bende,

Patrick correctly stated what hydration is from a baker's percent standpoint, and Bill gave the recommended hydration for a typical all-purpose flour. If you are using a good digital scale and weighing the flour and water, your hydration will always be at the proper percent. However, if you are using volume measurements, the hydration can swing quite widely in either direction, depending on how you measure out the flour, that is, with a light hand or a heavy hand or something in between.

Peter

[Bende]

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.

I'd love a good recipe with the proper hydration level for a 00 flour pie, which will be cooked on a stone in my home oven, if you have one handy?  I've got my first 00 experimentation rising in my fridge as we speak (its amazing how much softer the dough is then my usual King Arthur AP dough).

Would you use a different hydration level for 00 vs. King Arthur AP?

Bende

[TXCraig1]

When I was using KAAP on my grill mod (~750F), I was using 62-64%. With Caputo in my WFO (~900F), I've been generally using 60%. I would think 60% would be a good place to start for use in a home oven.

CL

[Bende]

Thanks, I'll give this a shot.

Ben