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Last active July 2, 2025 13:04
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Sour dough preparation formula
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formula.md

Formula to prepare a sour dough

When preparing a sour dough to bake, you need to control its hydratation, saltiness, amount of leaven to use, etc. This file gives a formula to calculate the quantity of ingredients to use, given the end weight of dough required, hydratation, etc.

The complexity of hydratation

Hydratation is the ratio between the total amount of water and total amount of flour in the dough. But sinc leaven is composed of water and flour, it has to be taken into account. The amount of leaven and salt is factor of the amount of flour added. The challenge is to retreive the amount of flour, water, leaven and salt by only knowing the total weight of the mixed dough and the ratio of each ingredients.

Parameters

Rules

  • "added flour" doesn't include the flour in the leaven
  • "added water" doesn't include the water in the leaven
  • "total flour" includes the flour in the leaven
  • "total water" includes the water in the leaven
  • leaven is composed of 50 % water and 50 % flour
  • leaven is factor of the added flour
  • salt is factor of the added flour
  • weights are expressed in kilograms (kg)
  • volumes are expressed in liters (l)

Variables

  • T = totalDough: kg - total weight of the dough once all ingredients have been mixed
  • H = hydratationRatio: l/kg - aimed amount of water for 1 kg of flour in the dough (includes water and flour from leaven)
  • L = leavenRatio: kg - amount of leaven to add for 1 kg of added flour
  • S = saltRatio: kg - amount of salt to add foir 1 kg of added flour

Formulas

Added flour

$$flour(T)=\frac{T}{1 + \frac{L}{2} + H + (H \cdot \frac{L}{2}) + S}$$

Added water

$$water(T)=flour(T) \cdot \frac{2H + HL - L}{2}$$

Added leaven

$$leaven(T)=flour(T) \cdot L$$

Added salt

$$salt(T)=flour(T) \cdot S$$
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