Separate Flour and Water Already Present in a Sourdough Starter — Free
Adding starter changes both sides of a dough's hydration fraction. Count the flour inside it as well as its water before adjusting a family recipe, especially when changing between stiff and equal-flour-and-water preferments.
The proof surface
Pan-area scaling changes recipe size; this chart instead reconciles a hidden ingredient denominator. It decomposes explicitly specified preferments and shows a signed water-planning adjustment. Ingredient behavior, fermentation schedules and baked yield are not inferred from the mass balance.
InputComponent code | starter, flour or water | grams | starter hydration (%); chosen final flour-basis hydration (%)
Rare devicePan-area scaling changes recipe size; this chart instead reconciles a hidden ingredient denominator. It decomposes explicitly specified preferments and shows a signed water-planning adjustment. Ingredient behavior, fermentation schedules and baked yield are not inferred from the mass balance.
Output artifactWater needed minus water already planned with row-by-row context
Cost$0 local calculation · no card, paid key, subscription or signup · proposed filing price is not for sale
Sample, not your facts: Illustrative inputs: Rye preferment | starter | 180 | 100; Bread flour | flour | 410 | 0; Added water | water | 250 | 0. Chosen final flour-basis hydration (%) = 75. Water needed minus water already planned: 35 g water adjustment. All records are invented.
Before using the preferment-balance chart
Hydration here means water mass divided by flour mass, multiplied by 100. It does not mean water as a percentage of total dough mass. A starter's hydration must be known from its recipe or a verified feeding record; age, appearance and total mass do not reveal it. Use only flour, water and starters whose mass can be modeled entirely as flour plus water. Milk, eggs, oils, sweeteners and other ingredients contain components this model does not decompose. Flour and water rows use a zero in the fourth cell to state that no starter hydration applies. A positive final flour mass is required. The target is your chosen recipe assumption, not a universal bread recommendation, and the adjustment is calculated for an unmixed plan.
Why the flat version breaks
Counting all starter mass as flour
A 180 g equal-hydration starter is not 180 g flour. Treating it as flour alone inflates the denominator and hides the water already added. Keep the decomposed masses in the reading so changes between starter recipes cannot masquerade as changes in total dough size.
Using total dough mass as the denominator
A dough containing 500 g flour and 375 g water has 75% flour-basis hydration, not 75% water by total mass. Those percentages answer different questions. The chart labels the basis explicitly; do not substitute a packaging water-content percentage for the starter recipe's flour-basis number.
Adding milk or eggs as if they were water
Other ingredients are not pure water and can contribute solids, fat and protein. This restricted model cannot decompose them, and it does not infer their moisture. Keep such recipes outside this chart unless a qualified recipe source provides a separate suitable accounting method.
How to work the preferment-balance chart
Recover the preferment's actual flour-water basis
Identify the hydration convention used in the starter recipe. A 50% starter means 50 g water per 100 g flour, not half of the starter's total mass as water. If the starter has additional ingredients or uncertain feeding history, do not assign an invented hydration. Clarify the recipe with a knowledgeable baker before entering it.
Separate additions by component type
Enter pure flour and pure water as their own rows, with their measured gram amounts and a fourth-cell zero. Enter a flour-water starter as starter with its total mass and supplied hydration. Labels should distinguish components rather than people. Several preferments can coexist in one plan if each has a separately known composition.
Decompose before calculating final hydration
For starter mass m and hydration h, flour is m/(1+h/100) and water is m minus that flour. Sum flour and water across all component types. Target water is total flour multiplied by the chosen final hydration divided by 100. Subtract currently planned water to get the signed adjustment; positive is an additional planned amount, negative is an overage.
Revise the plan while quantities are still separable
Compare the chart with the recipe before combining ingredients. A negative adjustment means lower a planned water addition if that is compatible with the recipe, not remove water from mixed dough. Texture, flour absorption, fermentation and oven behavior still need recipe judgment. Use established food-handling instructions independently of this calculation.
What the preferment-balance chart separates
Question
Before
Inspect this instead
Counting all starter mass as flour
A 180 g equal-hydration starter is not 180 g flour. Treating it as flour alone inflates the denominator and hides the water already added. Keep the decomposed masses in the reading so changes between starter recipes cannot masquerade as changes in total dough size.
Separate additions by component type
Using total dough mass as the denominator
A dough containing 500 g flour and 375 g water has 75% flour-basis hydration, not 75% water by total mass. Those percentages answer different questions. The chart labels the basis explicitly; do not substitute a packaging water-content percentage for the starter recipe's flour-basis number.
Decompose before calculating final hydration
Adding milk or eggs as if they were water
Other ingredients are not pure water and can contribute solids, fat and protein. This restricted model cannot decompose them, and it does not infer their moisture. Keep such recipes outside this chart unless a qualified recipe source provides a separate suitable accounting method.
Revise the plan while quantities are still separable
This preferment-balance chart replaces a manual count or calculation, not source verification or the responsible person’s review.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
HYPOTHESIS / PROTOTYPE — checkout unavailable. Calculation is local. A draft is saved automatically in this browser profile when storage is available; Reset to sample clears it. Optional Pro history stores only five summaries and has its own deletion control. State links encode your inputs and can remain in browser history, clipboard or recipients’ records; share only non-sensitive rows. Optional external AI formatting leaves this device. The required site analytics beacon reports page activity; shared URLs contain encoded inputs. Do not treat an encoded URL as private. The calculator has no input-collection endpoint.
Recipe mass-balance planning only, not fermentation, allergy or food-safety guidance. Confirm uncertain starter composition with a knowledgeable baker and follow an established recipe and food-handling instructions; do not attempt to remove calculated water from mixed dough.
Data note: The preferment-balance chart processes Component code | starter, flour or water | grams | starter hydration (%) locally. Starter/sample selection and Run compute in this tab; no input is sent by the calculator. A local draft may be saved; explicit state-link sharing or optional external AI formatting can disclose inputs. Use non-sensitive labels.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a plotted bar chart sheet
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the preferment-balance chart reading, and holds your drafts on this device — one complete free app run; the proposed $4 one-time filing layer is not for sale.
The preferment-balance chart answer stays complete for free. The proposed $4 one-time filing layer adds row CSV, print and five local reading summaries, not hidden answers. Checkout is unavailable; the article demo remains unlimited.
Recipe mass-balance planning only, not fermentation, allergy or food-safety guidance. Confirm uncertain starter composition with a knowledgeable baker and follow an established recipe and food-handling instructions; do not attempt to remove calculated water from mixed dough.
What this is built on
Method: For starter mass m and hydration h, flour is m/(1+h/100) and water is m minus that flour. Sum flour and water across all component types. Target water is total flour multiplied by the chosen final hydration divided by 100. Subtract currently planned water to get the signed adjustment; positive is an additional planned amount, negative is an overage.
All sample records, dates, quantities and labels are invented. No outside policy, contract, rate, clock offset, measurement or accessibility standard is represented as verified.
Google’s official pricing documentation, fetched 2026-10-01, says AI Studio is free in available regions. Optional formatting may require a Google account; manual local entry requires none. Limits can change and free-tier content may be used to improve products. Do not send private records.
Before: starter mass disappeared into an uncertain hydration estimate. After: its flour and water are explicit components of the recipe's denominator.
Setting: Chosen final flour-basis hydration (%) = 75. Expected summary: 35 g water adjustment.
The 180 g starter at 100% hydration contains 90 g flour and 90 g water. With 410 g additional flour and 250 g additional water, total flour is 500 g and water is 340 g. A supplied 75% target corresponds to 375 g water, so the mass balance is 35 g short. This is a planning adjustment before mixing, not an instruction to repair an already fermented dough.
Sample B — changed plan
Stiff starter | starter | 150 | 50
Main flour | flour | 400 | 0
Mix water | water | 345 | 0
Setting: Chosen final flour-basis hydration (%) = 75. Expected summary: -20 g water adjustment.
The 150 g starter at 50% hydration splits into 100 g flour and 50 g water. Total flour is still 500 g, but water is 395 g. The target requires 375 g, so the adjustment is -20 g: the planned water amount exceeds this model's target by twenty grams. Water cannot be removed cleanly from a mixed dough; revise the recipe plan before mixing rather than treating the negative number as a practical extraction instruction.
Setting: Chosen final flour-basis hydration (%) = 75. Expected summary: 0 g water adjustment.
The starter contributes 100 g flour and 100 g water. Additions bring flour to 200 g and water to 150 g, exactly 75% of flour mass. The adjustment is zero. This does not establish fermentation readiness, texture or safe storage: those questions require recipe and food-handling knowledge outside the entered flour-water accounting.
Optional AI formatting, never the calculation
Manual entry completes this preferment-balance chart for free without signup. If available to you, the free AI Studio interface linked in the sources may format fictional or non-sensitive notes; external access may require an account. No API key or AI call is built into this tool. Free-tier content may be used to improve products. Review each cell and transcribe it to the labeled row schema; do not paste the JSON object into the row box.
Format only these fictional or non-sensitive notes for a preferment-balance chart. Return strict JSON shaped as {"rows": [{"label": "string", "cells": ["string", "string", "string"]}], "setting": "string"}. The columns are Component code | starter, flour or water | grams | starter hydration (%); the setting is Chosen final flour-basis hydration (%). Keep all supplied strings and quantities exactly; do not calculate, infer missing entries, invent dates or add advice. If any required value is missing, return an empty rows array and ask me for it separately. I will verify every cell against my source and manually transcribe rows using vertical bars before running the local calculator.
An AI response is not executed, fetched or trusted as a result. Missing values remain questions; the strict local parser checks the rows you actually enter.