Focaccia dough calculator
Focaccia genovese: a 57% dough, olive oil, and the salamoia poured over just before it goes in.
Focaccia genovese — and a correction of a popular myth: the authentic article is not a high-hydration dough. Genoa’s original runs a moderate 53–57% water; the glistening, dimpled surface comes from salamoia, the oil-and-water brine flooded over the top before baking.
How it works
A moderate dough
Water 57% (authentic sources run 53–57%), olive oil 5% in the dough, a firm 3% salt and 1.6% active dry yeast, the type Pasta Grammar uses. This mixes into a smooth, workable dough — no folding heroics required — that presses easily into an oiled pan at about 550 g per 38 × 25 cm.
The salamoia
The defining step: whisk roughly equal parts olive oil and water with salt, pour it over the fully proofed, aggressively dimpled dough, and let it pool in the craters. In the oven the water evaporates and the oil fries the surface — that is where the shine, the salt hit and the soft-crisp contrast come from.
Proof and bake
Let the dimpled, brined dough recover briefly, then bake hot until golden with pale valleys where the salamoia sat. Classic height is 1.5–2 cm — this is a thin focaccia, not a bread slab.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- Pasta Grammar — focaccia genovese — Authentic Genovese at 53% hydration with the salamoia flood, the dry end of the band; the salt (10 g) and the 5 g of active dry yeast on 320 g of flour are this recipe’s.
- Vincenzo’s Plate — traditional focaccia genovese — 57% water, generous oil — agrees that real focaccia genovese is not high-hydration.
- The Perfect Loaf — A Simple Sourdough Focaccia — The modern 76% sourdough school, recorded as the other tradition.
FAQ
But I’ve seen 80% hydration focaccia everywhere?
That is the modern artisan school — The Perfect Loaf’s sourdough version runs 76% — and it makes a taller, more open, more bread-like focaccia. Delicious, but it is not the Genovese original, which the authentic sources put at 53–57% plus salamoia.
Won’t the brine make it soggy?
No — the water steams off during the bake; what remains is an oil-fried, seasoned surface.
What goes on top?
Classic toppings: coarse salt alone, or thinly sliced onion. Rosemary is already a variation; anything heavier turns it into a pan pizza.
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