Autolyse 101 Pizza Discuss Autolyse 101 in the Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart forums; Hi Rossco! There is no way to tell what the precise hydration is. The closest you can reasonably get would ...

[texassourdough]

Hi Rossco!

There is no way to tell what the precise hydration is. The closest you can reasonably get would be to live in a very dry place like Arizona or most of Australia and let the flour really dry out. Then the hydration calcs will be reasonably correct for simple doughs of water, flour, and salt.

One can dry the flour in a laboratory to measure the water content, but...it's not practical at home.

My favorite pizzaria uses Caputo and during a recent wet period was mixing at 58% hydration to get the same dough texture they normally get at 65. (That seems extreme and likely to involve more than flour hydrtion but???)

In calculating hydrtion milk is treated as water. Oil doesn't count. It is all approximate - at best.
Jay