The Fresh Loaf

News & Information for Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts

Final Bread Weight

  • Pin It
zeee's picture

Final Bread Weight

hi everybody,

I have been baking, or trying to learn baking, for the fourth year in a raw, and yet I have some frustration over the final product of loaf.

My main question is, how much should a final bread weigh in ratio to the dough weight?? in other words, how much should a dough lose of its weight when it is finally backed?

Every time I back I tend to scale my dough before shaping and directly after dividing, then I do so after backing, the percentage I get is around 15 % of loss in the weight.. is this acceptable. with this happening I tend to get good oven spring.. if i can say and nice texture in the inside of the dough with the intended irregular bubbles.

As I  bake at home, I buy bread from bakery shops and try to compare, and surprisingly, the difference is huge. the purchased ones are big in size,soft but guess what very light in weight. just wondering, are the bakery shops using some other "ingredients that makes it this way", so what is wrong??




lazybaker's picture

There were some topics about pre-bake and post-bake weights. I can't find all the topics except for a couple:

For me, I get heavy loaves when I use high hydration dough. I think I wasn't baking the loaves properly because I could never bake off the moisture. Maybe they're underbaked. There are large holes, but the crumb seems too moist compared to their lower hydration counterparts. 

With lower hydration dough, I get lighter loaves with a drier crumb.

breadforfun's picture

When I bake sourdoughs, typically 65-75% hydration, I lose around 16-18% weight after bake.  As a home baker, it doesn't really matter to me, but it would for someone selling their loaves.  At this rate you would need around 550 gm dough to end up with a 1-lb loaf.  It seems the final density should not be a factor.