Every Five Points Costs 25 Grams
A 500 g batch of dough gains 25 g for every five points of hydration you climb. That is 1 tablespoon and 2 teaspoons of water, and it is the only arithmetic a hydration chart really needs: 65% and 75% are the same formula with two extra spoons of water, and a dough you can roll becomes one you can only fold.
The water column is flour weight times the percentage. The dough weight column adds salt at 2% and active dry yeast at 1.2%, so a lean dough weighs flour × (1 + hydration + 0.032). At 500 g of flour that is 841 g at 65% and 916 g at 80%. Same flour, same pan, 75 g apart.
| Hydration | Water for 500 g flour | By volume (240 g/cup) | Finished dough |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50% | 250 g | 1 cup + 2 tsp | 766 g |
| 55% | 275 g | 1 cup + 2 tbsp | 791 g |
| 60% | 300 g | 1¼ cups | 816 g |
| 65% | 325 g | 1 cup + 5½ tbsp | 841 g |
| 70% | 350 g | 1 cup + 7 tbsp | 866 g |
| 75% | 375 g | 1½ cups + 1 tbsp | 891 g |
| 80% | 400 g | 1⅔ cups | 916 g |
| 85% | 425 g | 1¾ cups + 1 tsp | 941 g |
Halve it for a single small loaf, double it for two. The percentages do not change, which is why the chart stops at one flour weight. If you want the water for 750 g instead of 500 g, the Dough Hydration Calculator takes any flour weight and returns the grams, ounces, or milliliters, plus a label for the range you landed in.
The Same Chart, Sorted by What You’re Baking
A percentage in the abstract is hard to picture. Tied to a bread you actually bake, it becomes a target.
| What you’re baking | Target hydration | Water for 500 g flour | What the dough does at the bench |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soft pretzels | 50–55% | 250–275 g | Dense and dry to the touch, rolls without sticking |
| Bagels | 52–56% | 260–280 g | Stiff, smooth, barely tacky, holds a rope shape |
| Pizza, home oven | 62–65% | 310–325 g | Opens without tearing, releases from the counter |
| Sandwich bread | 62–65% | 310–325 g | Soft, clears the bowl, rolls tight for a pan |
| Dinner rolls | 64–68% | 320–340 g | Light tack, rounds into 55–60 g balls |
| Whole wheat sandwich | 70–74% | 350–370 g | Feels like 62% white dough and still browns fast |
| Sourdough boule | 72–78% | 360–390 g | Wet, holds a fold, needs bench flour to shape |
| Ciabatta | 78–85% | 390–425 g | Slack, pours out of the bowl, stretched not shaped |
| Focaccia | 78–85% | 390–425 g | Batter-like, dimples stay put, spreads to the corners |
| No-knead | 80–85% | 400–425 g | Shaggy and unshaped, relies on a cold retard |
Two rows are worth pinning up. Ciabatta at 80% is not a dough you knead. It is a dough you stretch and fold in an oiled bowl every 30 minutes, four times, and then tip onto a floured cloth. Bagels at 54% fight back when you roll them, and that resistance is the point.
Matching the Number to Your Pan
The last column of any chart is the part that decides whether the loaf clears the rim or mushrooms over it.
| Pan | Dough it holds | Flour at 65% | Flour at 80% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8.5x4.5 inch loaf | 700 g | 415 g | 380 g |
| 9x5 inch loaf | 850 g | 505 g | 465 g |
| 10-inch round, 2 inches deep | 1,200 g | 715 g | 655 g |
| 13x18 half sheet, focaccia | 1,400 g | 830 g | 765 g |
Read the two flour columns against each other. A 9x5 pan takes 40 g less flour at 80% than at 65%, because the extra water is taking up the room the flour would have used. If you like a formula at 78% and want it in a loaf pan, do not just add water to your old 65% card. Work backward from the pan weight and let the flour line shrink. Our baking pan converter handles the same trade when you are moving between pan shapes rather than hydration levels.
The Two Charts on This Page Do Not Agree
Open the calculator page and scroll down, and you will find a reference chart split into four bands: 50–55 very firm, 55–65 standard, 65–75 artisan, 75–90+ high. Run a dough through the calculator itself and you get a different set of labels, with boundaries at 58, 65, 72, 80, and 90.
| Hydration | What the calculator labels it | What the reference chart calls it |
|---|---|---|
| 52% | Low Hydration (under 58) | Very firm, 50–55 |
| 60% | Medium-Low (under 65) | Standard, 55–65 |
| 68% | Medium (under 72) | Artisan, 65–75 |
| 74% | High (under 80) | Artisan, 65–75 |
| 82% | Very High (under 90) | High, 75–90+ |
Neither is wrong, and the gap tells you something useful. The label answers “how will this handle,” the chart answers “what is this range usually for.” At 74% the dough is already wet and sticky in your hands, which is what the label reports, while the chart still files it under artisan bread, which is what people make with it. Trust the handling word when you are deciding whether to add water.
The chart on the page also puts pizza at 65–75%. Most home-oven formulas sit at 62–65%, and that is not a contradiction so much as a missing column. A wood-fired oven at 900°F bakes a 60% pizza in 70 seconds. Your oven at 500°F on a steel needs 6 to 7 minutes, and a 75% dough in there gives up its structure before the bottom sets. Nothing in a hydration chart can see your oven.
What the Chart Cannot See
Flour that drinks more. Whole wheat and rye absorb 5 to 10 points more water than white flour before they feel the same. A 70% whole wheat dough handles like a 62% white one, so use the row above the one you think you need.
Flour that went in by the cup. Four scoops of bread flour at 127 g per cup is 508 g, not 500 g, so 325 g of water reads 64.0% instead of 65%. Pack the scoop to 132 g and it drops to 61.6%. One weighing removes this entire class of error.
Starter and pre-ferments. A 100 g starter at 100% hydration carries 50 g of flour and 50 g of water, and both belong in the chart’s totals. Subtract them from the flour and water lines or the dough in the bowl will not match the number you aimed for. The sourdough calculator does that subtraction for you.
Butter, eggs, and milk. These add water and take up room, so an enriched dough at 65% water and 15% butter is wetter than a lean dough at the same percentage. Count the water in the milk, roughly 88% of its weight, and treat the butter as fat.
Salt measured in spoons. Fine sea salt runs about 6 g per teaspoon and Diamond Crystal kosher about 2.8 g, so the same 2% formula can land anywhere from 1% to 2% depending on the crystal. That shifts fermentation more than hydration does, and our yeast calculator will size the yeast around whatever rise time you have.
Try Our Free Tools
The Dough Hydration Calculator takes a flour weight and a target percentage and returns the water, in either direction. The Sourdough Calculator builds a full formula from a dough weight and removes the starter’s flour and water from the totals. The Yeast Calculator converts between instant, active dry, and fresh for your dough type and schedule. And when the chart gives you a formula for one loaf and you need three, the Recipe Servings Calculator scales the whole card without breaking the fractions.
The number to remember is 25 g of water per five points on 500 g of flour. Pick the row that matches what you are baking, weigh the flour, and pour. The exception is flour that never touched a scale, because then the chart is describing your scoop, not your bread.