Bread Flour Hydration Guide

How Bread Flour behaves at each hydration

Bread flour is the workhorse of hearth-style sourdough. Milled from hard red winter or hard red spring wheat, it provides the 12-13.5% protein content needed to develop the robust gluten structure that supports open crumb and high hydration doughs. The absorption multiplier is the industry baseline (1.000) — all other flour hydration behaviors are measured relative to bread flour. King Arthur's classic unbleached bread flour and Central Milling's Artisan Bakers Craft are the reference specs for US bakers. Use it as 100% of the flour in baguettes and country loaves, or as the base (70-90%) in whole-grain blends. Bread flour tolerates extended autolyse, long bulk ferments, and retarded proofs without losing structure.

Substituting Bread Flour for bread flour

Absorption multiplier: 1.000×. When substituting for bread flour, no adjustment needed. For example: a 75% bread-flour recipe becomes 75% when using 100% Bread Flour.

The calculator below is pre-set to 72%. Adjust the slider to match your target. Salt and levain percentages are the flour-independent defaults (2.0% and 20%).

Technique at target hydration

Autolyse 30-60 minutes with water at target dough temperature before adding levain and salt. For 75-80% hydration, add 3-4 sets of stretch-and-folds over the first 2 hours of bulk. Higher hydration (82%+) benefits from coil folds instead of stretch-and-folds. Shape cold (after overnight retard) for easier handling and better ear.

Calculator pre-set to 72%