Bakers calculator

Understanding the numbers

Baking sourdough is part art, part science — and a little bit of maths. Remember to find something that works for you and then keep is simple! This calculator takes care of the numbers for you, but here are the essentials

Hydration
This is the ratio of water to flour. Higher hydration means wetter dough and often a more open crumb but can also mean the dough is harder to handle. As a beginner a good starting point is around 70% hydration. Your dough will remain workable during it's stretch and fold and also when moving the loaf to be baked after proofing. After you've mastered a few loaves, test yourself on some higher hydration bakes!

Target Loaf Weight (Total Flour)
This is used as an indication on the final loaf size/weight. Total flour includes both the flour in your dough and the flour in your starter. That’s why the calculator asks for starter hydration — so it can split your starter into flour and water.

Starter
Most starters are 100% hydration, meaning equal parts flour and water. Adding starter adds both flour and water to your recipe, not just the culture so knowing how much and what hydration helps to calculate the loaf hydration. A good place to start is 20% starter (by weight) to final dough weight, so if you want a 500g loaf, 20% is 100g of starter. There are no hard and fast "rules" here. More starter means faster fermentation (and potential over proofing) and less starter, the inverse. Dont get too hung up on this though, play around with it and eventually measurements will be secondary to your intuition or knowing how the dough feels.

Salt
Salt is a percentage of the total flour. A typical level is around 2% for balanced flavour and fermentation. More salt means slower fermentation.

With these basics in mind, the calculator helps you quickly design and repeat recipes with confidence.