Answers to exercises for Part 2 of the Baker’s Percentage Tutorial.
Exercise 1
Consider this recipe:
- Flour 1000 g
- Water 680 g
- Yeast 30 g
- Salt 18 g
Express this recipe as a BP formula.
What is the hydration of this dough?
The type of yeast is not specified. What type do you think is intended?
Exercise 1 Answer
- Flour 100%
- Water 68%
- Yeast 3%
- Salt 1.8%
The hydration is 68%.
The yeast percentage is 3%. This probably means that fresh yeast is intended, because 3% would be quite high for active dry or instant yeast.
Exercise 2
Consider this formula:
- Flour 75%
- Whole wheat flour 20%
- Whole rye flour 5%
- Water 50%
- Milk 10%
- Instant yeast 1%
- Salt 2%
What is the hydration of this dough?
What type of dough do you think this is?
Exercise 2 Answer
The hydration is 60% (50% water + 10% milk).
60% hydration is quite low, especially given that this formula contains 25% whole grain flour (remember that whole grain flours absorb more water than white). This is probably a bagel or similar dough.
Exercise 3
What questions are raised for you by the following formula?
- Whole wheat flour 50%
- Rye flour 10%
- Semolina flour 10%
- Water 75%
- Fresh yeast 2.5%
- Salt 0.2%
Exercise 3 Answer
I know there is an error in the formula because the flour percentages do not add up to 100%. Also, I wonder if there may be an error in the salt, because 0.2% is quite low (although not unheard of).