Built by a baker, for bakers

BreadHydration.com started with a simple annoyance: most hydration calculators online were stuck behind a paywall, buried in ads, or couldn't handle multi-flour blends, preferments, and sourdough starters. So I built one that could. Then another. Then ten more.

Our mission

Baking is a craft anyone can learn, and the math shouldn't get in the way. Every tool here is free, needs no account, and runs in your browser. When you enter flour weights, nothing is sent to a server. Recipe history stays in your browser's local storage.

We cover a lot of ground: sourdough boules, Neapolitan pizza, baguettes, New York bagels, laminated croissants, plus cookies and cakes. First loaf or small bakery, the calculators do the arithmetic so you can watch the dough.

The site is deliberately simple. No account. No email gate. No dark patterns. Open a tool, use it, bake.

What you'll find here

  • Bread Hydration Calculator: exact hydration for any flour blend, or reverse mode to find water for a target %.
  • Sourdough Calculator: counts flour and water inside your starter so overall hydration is accurate.
  • Pizza Dough Calculator: any number of balls, any style, from Neapolitan (58%) to pan pizza (78%).
  • Baker's Percentage Calculator: convert a recipe to baker's math and scale it to any batch size.
  • Sourdough Starter Calculator: feeding amounts for any target weight and hydration.
  • Baguette, Bagel, and Croissant Calculators: specialist tools for the breads with the most variables.
  • Hydration Chart: a quick visual of where each bread type sits on the hydration spectrum.
  • Cookie and Cake Moisture Guide: because not every bake is a loaf.

New tools show up as I build them. If you want a calculation that doesn't exist yet, suggest it on the contact page.

How the site stays free

Hosting, domain, and build time cost money. BreadHydration.com runs on a few display ads so the tools can stay free. I keep ads quiet: no autoplay video, no interstitials, no pop-ups.

If you use the site a lot and want to support it more directly, you can buy a coffee on Ko-fi. That money goes to keeping the site online and shipping new tools.

Support us on Ko-fi

Privacy and technology

The site is built with Astro. Pages are pre-rendered at build time and served as plain HTML: no server-side processing, no database. Calculators run in your browser as compiled React islands.

We use localStorage for theme preference (light or dark) and recent calculator inputs so tools remember where you left off. That data never leaves your device.

Anonymized, cookie-free analytics show which tools get used so I know what to improve. I don't track individual users or sell data. Details are in the privacy policy.

Pages stay light on purpose. Heavy JavaScript only loads where you need it. Tool pages lazy-load their calculators when you open them.

Get in touch

Found a bug? Want a new tool? See a number that doesn't match how you bake? I want to hear it. The contact page has a short form. No account needed.

You can also use the social links below. I usually reply within 48 hours.