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Spend five minutes in any pizza forum and someone will be bragging about 80 % hydration while someone else is asking why their dough is glued to the worktop. Behind all of it sits one very simple calculation. Once it clicks, you can read any recipe, adapt it, and understand why your dough behaves the way it does.
What hydration means
Hydration is the amount of water in a dough relative to the flour. It is written as a baker's percentage: flour is always 100 %, and water is expressed as a share of it.
Hydration (%) = water weight ÷ flour weight × 100
A dough with 1000 g of flour and 620 g of water is at 62 % hydration. Weigh everything; cups and spoons are far too imprecise for flour.
One common misunderstanding: 62 % hydration does not mean the dough is 62 % water. It means 62 g of water per 100 g of flour. That is why baker's percentages always add up to more than 100 %.
Doing the maths
From flour to water
You have 500 g of flour and want 60 % hydration: 500 × 0.60 = 300 g of water.
From pizzas to flour
Usually you know how many pizzas you want, not how much flour you need. Divide the total dough weight by the sum of all percentages and you have your flour. Or let our dough calculator do it for you.
With a preferment or sourdough
If you use a poolish, biga or sourdough starter, those contain flour and water too. Count everything together, which King Arthur calls the overall baker's percentage:
- Poolish: 300 g flour, 300 g water
- Final dough: 700 g flour, 320 g water
- Overall: 1000 g flour, 620 g water, so 62 % hydration
Oil softens dough as well, but it is listed separately and not counted as hydration.
Hydration by pizza style
These reference values match the presets in our calculator.
| Style | Hydration | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan | 60 % (55 to 65) | soft, very extensible, made for extreme heat |
| High-heat mobile oven / market pizza | 62 % | a little more margin, with 1 % oil |
| New York | 62 % | with oil and a little sugar, longer bake |
| Teglia / al taglio | 75 % | very soft and airy, baked in a pan |
| Tarte flambée with yeast | 55 % | firm, rolls out very thin |
| Tarte flambée without yeast | 50 % | very firm, crisp |
For comparison, the AVPN rules for Verace Pizza Napoletana call for 1 litre of water to 1.6 to 1.8 kg of flour, depending on how much water the flour absorbs. That works out at roughly 56 to 63 % hydration.
How thirsty is your flour?
Flours differ in how much water they can take. The main factors are the amount and quality of protein, the share of damaged starch and how much bran is in the flour. Research on dough rheology confirms that bran and damaged starch raise water absorption.
Some reference points:
- The AVPN specifies a water absorption of 55 to 62 % for a suitable tipo 00.
- Strong Canadian spring wheat flour (CWRS) reaches a lab water absorption of about 62 to 66 %, according to the Canadian Grain Commission.
- Darker flours with more bran usually absorb more water than white flours.
Lab absorption is not the same number as recipe hydration, but it points the way: a strong flour handles more water, a weak one turns slack sooner. Our guide to flour types for pizza covers protein, W value and grades.
What different hydrations feel like
Numbers help, but your hands do the work. A rough guide to consistency:
| Hydration | Feel | Handling |
|---|---|---|
| below 57 % | firm, dry | easy to knead and roll, bakes up crisp and compact |
| 57 to 65 % | soft, supple | easy to knead and shape by hand, classic pizza territory |
| 65 to 70 % | very soft, slightly tacky | needs more kneading or stretch-and-folds |
| 70 to 80 % | soft to slack | sticky, best for pans or experienced hands |
Higher hydration makes dough more extensible and can give a more open crumb. The trade-off: it sticks more, tears more easily when you slide it onto the peel, and forgives fewer kneading mistakes. For your first doughs, 60 to 62 % is ideal.
Home oven vs. high-heat oven
Bake time has a big influence on how much water makes sense.
High-heat pizza oven
At roughly 430 to 485 °C, a Neapolitan pizza is done in 60 to 90 seconds. Relatively little moisture escapes in that time, so the crust stays tender. Extra water would only make the dough harder to handle, which is why Neapolitan doughs do so well at 58 to 62 %.
Home oven
At 250 to 300 °C the pizza spends several minutes in the oven and dries out more. Many home bakers therefore push hydration up a little, to around 65 to 70 %, or add a bit of oil to keep the crust from turning hard. Treat that as experience rather than law, and test it in small steps with your own flour.
Worked example: six pizzas for a garden party
You want six 250 g dough balls in the style suited to a hot mobile oven: 62 % hydration, 2.5 % salt, 1 % oil, and about 0.25 % fresh yeast for a 24-hour cold rise.
- Total dough: 6 × 250 g = 1500 g
- Sum of percentages: 100 + 62 + 2.5 + 1 + 0.25 = 165.75 %
- Flour: 1500 ÷ 1.6575 = about 905 g
- Water: 905 × 0.62 = about 561 g
- Salt: 905 × 0.025 = about 23 g
- Oil: 905 × 0.01 = about 9 g
- Fresh yeast: 905 × 0.0025 = about 2.3 g
| Ingredient | Percentage | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100 % | 905 g |
| Water | 62 % | 561 g |
| Salt | 2.5 % | 23 g |
| Oil | 1 % | 9 g |
| Fresh yeast | 0.25 % | 2.3 g |
| Total | 165.75 % | about 1500 g |
To take the same dough to 65 %, calculate 905 × 0.65 = 588 g of water, 27 g more. Your dough balls get a few grams heavier. For handling the fridge schedule, see cold fermentation.
When things go wrong
Hopelessly sticky dough usually means the hydration is too high for your flour, or the dough is under-kneaded. Crumbly, tearing dough lacks water or rest. More symptoms and fixes live in our dough troubleshooting guide, and the full picture from flour to oven is in the perfect pizza dough.
The timeline
Frequently asked questions
What does 65 % hydration mean?
For every 100 g of flour there are 65 g of water. With 1000 g of flour that is 650 g of water.
Is higher hydration always better?
No. More water can give a lighter, more open crumb, but the dough gets stickier and harder to shape. What matters is that flour, style and oven suit the amount of water.
Does the water in a preferment or starter count?
Yes. For overall hydration, add the flour and water from your poolish, biga or sourdough starter to the main dough.
Why is my dough sticky even though I followed the recipe?
Flours absorb different amounts of water. A weaker or very finely milled flour often takes less water than the one the recipe was written for. Hold some water back next time.
What hydration should a beginner use?
Around 60 to 62 % is a great place to start. The dough is soft but still easy to knead and shape by hand.
Sources
- Baker's Percentage, King Arthur Baking Company (kingarthurbaking.com)
- International Regulations Verace Pizza Napoletana (2024), Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) (pizzanapoletana.org)
- Investigation of the relationships between the alveograph parameters (Jødal, Larsen, Scientific Reports 2021), Scientific Reports / PubMed Central (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- Quality of Canada Western Red Spring wheat exports in the 2023-2024 crop year, Canadian Grain Commission (grainscanada.gc.ca)
We check facts against these sources. Spotted a mistake? Write to us and we will fix it.
