Wild Yeast

Notes from my kitchen, in which I bake bread and raise a few other matters

Why Worry About Water (Nifty Calculator Included)

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water.jpgI know what you’re thinking: Can she really have written this much about water, the most boring of bread ingredients? This girl really needs to find something to do.

But wait: water’s function is much more interesting than simply that of the matchmaker that brings flour, yeast, and salt together. The quality of my bread really improved once I learned how to adjust the amount and temperature of the water to control some characteristics of the dough.

Principle #1: the amount of water controls the consistency of the dough.

We’ve probably all had the experience of using the exact amount of flour and water specified in a recipe, only to find that the dough is too wet or too dry. This makes sense, because flours vary in their capacity to absorb water. Many books tell you to add additional flour during mixing if the dough is too wet, or additional water if it’s too dry. The problem with adding flour is that it changes the ratio of the flour to the other ingredients, so the bread may taste and behave differently from what the recipe intended. I was taught to use only water to adjust the dough consistency.

Instead of adding all the water specified in the recipe right at the beginning, I hold back about 15%, which I then add (some or all of) during mixing if the dough seems too dry. I may also need more water beyond the original amount, if the flour is especially thirsty. (Of course, understanding when the dough is the right consistency is the really tricky part; hopefully the recipe gives some guidance on this, but even then, especially if it’s a new recipe that’s really different from anything else I’ve made, I may just have to wing it.)

Principle #2: the temperature of the water controls the temperature of the dough.

Some recipes tell you to ferment the dough in a place that’s such-and-such temperature. That’s OK, but what’s equally important, for controlling how quickly the dough ferments, is the temperature of the dough. Some recipes specify the target dough temperature; if it isn’t given, 74-76F is a good range to shoot for in most cases. An instant-read thermometer is a good investment.

In Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes, master baker Jeffrey Hamelman describes how to achieve the dough temperature you want by adjusting the water temperature. If you don’t have the book, I’ll do my best to summarize. But get the book. If you already have it, go ahead and jump to the end of this post to download my temperature calculator.

Dough temperature is affected by five main factors: water temperature, flour temperature, preferment temperature (if you’re using one), room temperature, and the heat generated by the friction of mixing. Of these, the easiest to control is the water temperature.

Let’s leave aside, for a moment, the question of how you know what the mixing friction is. The other things (flour temp, room temp, preferment temp) are easy enough to measure (with the right tools, of course).

To determine the water temperature you need for a dough with a preferment, the formula is:

water temp = (4 x desired dough temp) – room temp – flour temp – preferment temp – mixing friction

For example, if the desired dough temp = 76, room temp = 70, flour temp = 69, preferment temp = 71, and mixing friction = 40, we can calculate:

water temp = (4 x 76) – 70 – 69 – 71 – 40 = 54

For a recipe without a preferment, the formula is:

water temp = (3 x desired dough temp) – room temp – flour temp – mixing friction

OK, but what about this mixing friction? Unfortunately this is not a simple, single number. The type of mixer, the amount and consistency of the dough, and the length of mixing time all affect the mixing friction. So it’s a matter of experimentation for each recipe you make, but you can make an educated guess. If I’m using my KitchenAid mixer to mix about 3 pounds of dough of medium consistency (similar to a basic sourdough) for about 10 minutes, I’ll start with a guesstimate of 40 for the mixing friction, if I haven’t made that particular recipe before. If I’m going to mix it by hand, though, I’ll guess the number to be around 5, because hand mixing generates much less heat. So I plug my guesstimate into the formula along with the other variables to determine my water temperature. Then when I’m done mixing, I take the temperature of the dough; if it’s what I hoped for, then I know my guess as to mixing friction was correct, and I note this for the next time I make this recipe. If not, I adjust the mixing friction number up or down next time.

Clear as mud? That’s what I thought. Get the book. In the meantime, if you’re really stumped, just use a value of 5 for hand mixing, or 4 x the number of minutes you anticipate mixing for a stand mixer, and it should get you in the ballpark.

Now the arithmetic in the temperature formula itself is straightforward, but can be tedious. So I made a simple calculator, in the form of an Excel spreadhseet, which I invite you to download. Simply enter the desired dough temp and the known variables, and it calculates the water temperature you need.

take-water-temp.jpgThe calculator also helps you figure out how to achieve the water temperature you’re after. If you use tap water you could just hold the instant-read thermometer under the running water until it’s right. But if you use bottled water, as I do, it’s a little trickier. I keep one bottle in the fridge (at about 40F) and one at room temperature. If I want, say, 55-degree water, I could just mix the two together by trial and error until I get to 55. But I don’t want to waste all that time and water, so I take the temp of my two waters, enter them into my calculator along with the amount and temperature of the final water I need, and it tells me how much water of each temperature is required. (I mix them together before adding it to the dough). If I need water that’s warmer than room temperature, I mix the room temp water with some that I heat in the microwave. I suppose it sounds complicated, but trust me, it’s not. Try the calculator.

Download water temperature calculator (Excel spreadsheet)

CommentsLeave a comment

  1. I’m not quite as rigorous about measuring the temperature of ingredients as you are but I have blundered onto using baby bottle warm water in the winter (when our kitchen is around 15C, which means that the flour is about that temperature too) and cool water in the summer when the kitchen can be anywhere between 20C and 27C.

    However, I am adamant about using our instant read meat thermometer to make sure that the inner temperature of baked bread is at least 210F. (I used to be casual about that too and used the “knocking on the bottom of the bread to hear if it sounded hollow” method. But that method just doesn’t cut it for slack dough bread…)

    -Elizabeth

    P.S. I mix and knead bread by hand (don’t own a mixer and broke our food processor the one time that I foolishly thought I’d try using it to help mix slack dough – $40 later and I NEVER use the food processor for anything but pesto now.)

  2. Elizabeth, I guess “rigorous” is putting it politely 🙂 I think you’re accomplishing the same thing I am, with a lot less work!

  3. I have an Artisan Kitchenaid mixer with whom I, on a routine basis, mix 930 grams of flour with 577 grams of water(straight dough mix). Currently I use water at 65*F, with a room temp. of 69*F and flour temp. of 69*F, and instant yeast. What would be your recommendation as to mixer speed, and time ( after the initial minute and 20 minutes rest per below) ? I normally mix all the ingredients for about a minute and, then, let the dough rest for 20 minutes before mixing.

  4. Jerry, I would recommend mixing on speed 2 for as long as it takes to develop the gluten to the level you want. I don’t recommend exact mixing times because there are so many variables involved. Your bread has a fairly low hydration (62%) so I am assuming you are going for something like a sandwich-type bread with a pretty even crumb, so you will want the gluten to be rather well developed. My post on gluten development has more information on this:
    http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/07/07/gluten/

  5. But what about time required to ferment? Eventually the dough will adjust to room temperature when it’s sat long enough, so shouldn’t that factor into the equation somehow?

  6. Amy, true enough, but the desired dough temperature is what you want when the dough comes off the mixer in order to ferment at approximately the given amount of time at the given temperature (usually room temp) in the recipe. If the room temperature is very warm or cold, adjust the desired dough temp and/or the fermentation time. It’s all part of the challenge and the fun 🙂

  7. Very intriguing! What would be a typical value for the mixing friction to start with when working with Celsius?
    (In your example 5 for hand mixing, 40 for a stand mixer.)
    Thanks,
    Gerd

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  16. Thank you 🙂 I am new to making homemade bread and my enthusiasm through my recent (but few) experiences have been inspiring. That was until my most recent one. I began making bread through the end to early spring seasons here (obtaining perfect results) but then last week (an average warm summer day) when I made my dough, I found that my oven temp without turning on was warmer than what I prep it for proofing so I opted to just allow my dough to rise at room temp (covered of course). The first rise seemed normal but once I divided and prepped it into my loaf pans for the 2nd rise (which I normally do at room temp – covered w/towel) the skin became tough and it didn’t rise to what I’m familiar with (even with extra time). When I slit the tops it drastically fell. I allowed it to rest more before baking which only grew my disappointment in the end result. The bread tasted fine but was certainly lacking some in texture, flavor and dried out fairly quickly.

    • Once I read your article, I gained a better understanding as to the science involved and my faith has been restored. I would love to use your Excel spreadsheet calculator (I’m an obsessed Excel fan <3 ) but when I attempted to load it from your link it came up blank. Would you be so kind as to forward a copy off it to me? I would be forever grateful and indebted. With my palatable gratitude, Karen Lajoie (aspired home baker)

      P.S. I have subscribed and I'm excited to view more from your site. Thanks!

  21. Hi Susan,

    thank you for the calculaator. It works! 🙂

    I don’t know if I am subscribed to your blog. It seems you no longer write on it. I hope you are well . . .

  28. I do this slightly differently, as various doughs have significantly different ratios of water to dough; I also control temperature in my preferment, which I usually have at 100% hydration, which is quite different from a straight dough.

    I use excel for everything. What I do is to multiply the weight of each significant temperature driving ingredient in grams (i.e., water, preferment and flour)each by their temperature, to get a product I call “TempGrams”.

    I then multiply the weights of each ingredient by a factor that represents how similar to water the ingredient is thermally (essentially a normalized specific heat). Water has a factor of 1.00, flour of .93, oil of .95, etc. Multiplying their weights by this factor does the job of reducing the contribution of temperature to the final dough of the ingredients that require less energy to affect their heat than water does.

    I add all the “TempGrams” together, and then divide it by the sum of all these above “adjusted weights” together, cancelling out the weight and just leaving the temperature.

    This allows me to dial the temperature of the water (the easiest to control) until the result is the DDT (desired dough temperature) I am looking for. This approach is always accurate, no matter how much or how little water, preferment, flour or whatever is in the recipe. The classic bakers’ method of using the TTF (total Temperature Factor) is workable, but can’t handle situations where ratios are significantly off standard. My method allows me to predict the dough temperature after mixing (but before kneading)to 1 degree Fahrenheit every time.

    Once you can do this, and you know how much heat your mixer will add (which you can do by simply adding 2degF per minute, or better yet, measuring the temperature of the dough before and after mixing and dividing by time (assuming the same mixer speed)you can home in on a desired dough temp easily. I built an excel calculator I’m happy to share with anyone who asks.

    • Hi Charles, I’d love to receive a copy of your excel calculator. It’s been a while since your post in August 2017 but hope you still read this.
      Thank you!

    • Charles, Your insight is awesome. A spreadsheet to dial this all in would be very welcome. You have a lot of fans. How can we possibly reach you?

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