The Crumb Comes First
A sandwich loaf gets sliced at 3/8 inch, stacked four high, and pressed flat by a lid. If the crumb has holes the size of a pea, the mustard leaves through them. That single constraint sets the hydration before any formula does.
Open crumb is a feature in a boule and a defect in a pan. A 78% sourdough produces the lacy structure people photograph. Put the same dough in a 9x5 pan and you get a loaf that mushrooms over the rim, tunnels under the crown, and leaves a gummy band just above the bottom crust. It still tastes good. It will not hold a slice of tomato.
Sandwich bread lands at 62% hydration, and 65% is the practical ceiling. The floor sits at 58%, where the loaf gets tight enough to crumble when you fold it around a filling. Seven points is the whole usable range.
58 to 65: What Each Level Does in a Pan
Same formula, six water levels, flour held at 478 g so only one variable moves.
| Hydration | Water | What the loaf does in a 9x5 pan |
|---|---|---|
| 58% | 277 g | Very tight crumb, crumbles when folded, crown pulls inward from the walls |
| 60% | 287 g | Firm slice, holds up under a bread knife and a heavy filling |
| 62% | 296 g | The default. Even crumb, cuts clean at 3/8 inch, no tunneling |
| 65% | 311 g | Softer crumb, slight dome, needs a firm seam or it spreads |
| 68% | 325 g | Mushroom cap, tunnels under the crown, tacky band above the base |
| 70% | 335 g | Focaccia that happens to be in a loaf pan. Bake it on a sheet instead |
The 68% row is the one that catches people. It looks fine going in and fine coming out. The problem shows when the loaf cools: a dense wet stripe an inch above the bottom crust, where steam condensed before the starch set.
The Pan Decides the Batch Size
Fill your pan with water and measure how many cups it holds. Sandwich dough wants roughly 3.5 oz of dough per cup of pan volume. A 9x5 takes 8½ cups, so 30 oz, which is 850 g.
| Pan | Water capacity | Dough weight | Flour at 62% | Water at 62% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.5 x 4.5 in | 7 cups | 700 g / 24.5 oz | 398 g | 247 g |
| 9 x 5 in | 8.5 cups | 840 g / 29.5 oz | 478 g | 296 g |
| 10 x 5 x 3 in | 10.5 cups | 1,040 g / 36.5 oz | 591 g | 367 g |
A lidded Pullman is the exception. A 13x4x4 holds 14 cups but takes 850 to 900 g, because the lid forces the dough to fill the box rather than rise above it. Use the water method on open pans and trust the manufacturer’s weight on a Pullman.
The 840 g Formula
Total percentage here is 175.9%, so 840 ÷ 1.759 gives the flour line. Everything else is a percentage of that.
| Ingredient | Baker’s % | Weight | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bread flour | 100% | 478 g | 3¾ cups |
| Water | 62% | 296 g | just under 1¼ cups |
| Sugar | 5% | 24 g | 2 tbsp |
| Butter, soft | 4% | 19 g | 1⅓ tbsp |
| Milk powder | 2% | 9.6 g | 1½ tbsp |
| Salt | 2% | 9.6 g | 1⅔ tsp fine sea salt |
| Instant yeast | 0.9% | 4.3 g | 1½ tsp |
The Dough Hydration Calculator runs that division for any pan weight, so you can start from 1,040 g for a 10-inch pan without rebuilding the table. Its Medium-Low band, 58 to 65, is exactly where this loaf sits.
One thing worth noticing: strip the sugar, butter, and milk powder out and the same 840 g of dough at 62% needs 509 g of flour instead of 478 g. Enrichment occupies mass. Convert a lean formula to a sandwich formula at the same dough weight and the flour line drops 30 g.
One Teaspoon Is One Point
At 478 g of flour, 1% hydration is 4.8 g, and a level teaspoon of water weighs 5 g. The whole 58 to 65 window is 34 g, about 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon.
That is why pan bread punishes a sloppy pour. Artisan dough at 75% has 15 points of runway, so a 20 g overpour disappears into the fold schedule. A sandwich dough has seven. Twenty grams is four points, and four points is the gap between the 62% row and something near focaccia.
Judge at 20 minutes, not at minute two. Flour needs that long to finish absorbing, and a mix that feels tight coming off the hook is usually correct 20 minutes later.
Butter Slackens, Sugar Tightens
Two enrichments push the dough in opposite directions, which is why enriched formulas read lower or higher than you expect.
Four percent butter makes a 62% dough handle like a 64% lean one. The fat coats gluten strands and the dough slides under your hand instead of fighting back. Sugar does the reverse. It dissolves in the water phase and holds part of it, so a 5% sugar dough feels like 60% at the same 62% number. A sweet dough at 10% sugar needs three or four extra points to feel the same on the bench.
Milk is a separate question. Whole milk is about 88% water, so 296 g of milk carries 261 g of water, not 296. Most bakers still swap it one for one, because the 35 g that is not water is fat, protein, and lactose, and it changes browning and tenderness far more than it changes firmness. Count the water rather than the liquid if you plan to repeat the formula.
Eggs count too. One large egg carries about 37 g of water, so a dough with an egg is wetter than the calculator thinks if you typed only the poured water.
Tangzhong Buys You Three Points
Cook 24 g of the flour, 5% of the total, with 120 g of the water, five times its weight, stirring until it turns to paste. Cool it, then add it with the rest. That 120 g is already inside the 296 g, so the formula still reads 62%.
What changes is how the water behaves. The gelatinized starch traps water that would otherwise sit free in the crumb, and the loaf bakes with the softness of a 65% dough while still slicing like a 62%. At 70% total hydration with a tangzhong you get a slice that folds without cracking. At 70% without one you get the gummy band from the table above.
If you are already keeping a starter, the same logic applies to a levain, except the starter’s flour and water both count toward the totals. The Sourdough Calculator subtracts them so a 62% sandwich loaf stays 62% when 100 g of starter goes in.
Bake at 350°F and Pull at 200°F
An 840 g loaf goes in at 350°F for 35 to 40 minutes and comes out when the center reads 200 to 205°F on an instant-read thermometer. Not 190°F. An enriched loaf at 190°F looks done, slices clean while warm, and turns tacky at the center once it reaches room temperature.
Sugar and milk powder brown the crust before the middle sets, so check at 25 minutes and tent with foil if the top is already dark. Scale the time with the pan: 700 g needs 32 to 36 minutes, 1,040 g needs 40 to 45.
Two schedule notes that move the number more than any percentage:
- Cold retard in the pan. Shape, pan, cover, and hold 12 to 16 hours at 38°F. Bake straight from the fridge at 375°F for 10 minutes, then drop to 350°F and add 5 to 8 minutes. Cold dough is stiffer than its percentage, which is why a retarded 65% loaf shapes like 62%.
- Warm milk, not cold. 296 g of 40°F milk against 544 g of 72°F everything else averages 61°F before mixing friction. Warm the milk to 90°F and the same sum lands at 78°F, which is where you want an enriched dough to finish.
Yeast scales with the schedule rather than the pan. Our yeast calculator puts white bread at 1.2% active dry for a standard rise, 0.6% for a slow one, and 1.8% for a fast one, with instant at three quarters of the active dry weight and fresh at double. At 478 g of flour, 0.9% instant is the 4.3 g in the table.
Try Our Free Tools
The Dough Hydration Calculator works in both directions, from flour weight to water or from what you poured to what you actually built. The Yeast Calculator sizes instant, active dry, and fresh for a same-day or retarded schedule. The Baking Pan Converter handles the jump from a 9x5 to a 10-inch pan without recalculating by hand, and the Recipe Servings Calculator doubles the batch when one loaf is not enough for the week.
Sandwich bread wants 62%, with 65% as the soft-crumb ceiling and 58% as the dense-slice floor. The exception is a tangzhong loaf, which will hold a tight, sliceable crumb at 70% because part of the water is already locked into gelatinized starch.