Sourdough Hydration Calc

Bake with the numbers actually printed on your flour bag.

Sourdough Hydration Calc is a free, offline workbench for home bakers. It works out the true hydration of your dough once the starter and any preferment are counted in — the number most calculators get wrong — and scales every ingredient to the batch you are actually making.

Dough calculator

• Set hydration, salt, starter and whole wheat / rye percentages
• Target flour weight, total dough weight, or loaf count
• Metric and imperial, with every weight shown in both
• A gauge that places your hydration in the range that suits the loaf, from a 70% country boule to an 88% ciabatta
• Live ingredient table: flour, water, salt, starter, what the starter itself contributes, and the finished dough weight

Levain and starter

• Starter feeding: ratios, how much to keep, how much to discard
• Levain build: make exactly the levain the bake needs, with no leftovers
• Starter stiffness: convert a 100% reading into stiff or liquid
• Yeast converter: instant, dry, fresh and starter in one place

Dough and bake

• Dough temperature: work backwards from your target dough temperature to the water temperature, with friction presets for hand kneading and stand mixers
• Pre-ferment: poolish, biga and pâte fermentée scaled to your flour
• Bake cost: what one loaf really costs you
• Unit converter for grams, ounces, cups and °C / °F

Recipes

A built-in library with hydration and starter ratios for Basic Sourdough, 100% Whole Wheat, Country Rye, Sourdough Baguette, Ciabatta, Focaccia and Multigrain. Open one to send it straight to the calculator, or scale it up to whatever batch you need.

Journal and planning

• Log every bake and every starter, with crumb shots
• Plan a bake backwards from the moment you want it out of the oven, and get reminded at every stage

Learn

Free guides on hydration, starter life, stretch and fold, crumb structure, cold retard and your very first loaf, plus a glossary of the terms you will meet.

Everything works offline. No account, no sign-in, and your bakes are never uploaded anywhere. The app is free and carries ads; a small tip removes them for good.