Focaccia dough calculator
Authentic focaccia genovese — a 58% dough with olive oil and the salamoia brine flooded on top before baking.
1 × 550 g · 58% hydration
Type how much flour you have — the portion weight recalculates.
Focaccia genovese — and a correction of a popular myth: the authentic article is not a high-hydration dough. Genoa’s original runs a moderate 58% 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 58% (authentic sources run 55–65%), olive oil 5% in the dough, a firm 3% salt and 1.6% instant yeast. 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.
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 every authentic source puts at 55–65% plus salamoia.
Won’t the brine make it soggy?
No — that fear is why people skip the step and wonder why their focaccia is dull. The water steams off during the bake; what remains is oil-fried, seasoned surface.
What goes on top?
Genovese purism: coarse salt and nothing, or thin onion. Rosemary is already a variation. Anything heavier and you are baking pizza in denial.