Baker's percentage calculator

What is baker's percentage?

Every ingredient written as a percent of the flour weight, with flour at 100%. 500 g flour, 350 g water, 10 g salt and 5 g yeast is 100% flour, 70% water, 2% salt and 1% yeast.

What is dough hydration?

The water as a percent of the flour: 350 g water to 500 g flour is 70% hydration. Higher hydration makes a wetter, more open crumb; lower makes a stiffer dough that is easier to shape.

Why do the percentages add up to more than 100%?

Because flour alone is 100% and everything else is added on top: the dough above is 173% in all, and 865 g in weight.

How much flour do I need for 1,000 g of dough?

Divide the dough weight by the total percentage: at 70% water, 2% salt and 1% yeast the total is 173%, so flour = 1,000 ÷ 1.73 = 578 g and water = 405 g. Pick "Weights from total dough" to do this.

Does it work in ounces?

Yes — percentages do not care about units. Enter every weight in grams or every weight in ounces, not a mix.

Why do bakers use percentages instead of cups?

Percentages scale: the same formula works for a 500 g test batch and a 50 kg bakery batch, and two recipes can be compared at a glance, for example by hydration. Weights also avoid the large differences between one cup of flour and the next, depending on how it is scooped.

How do I count flour in a sourdough starter or a preferment?

Split the starter into its own flour and water, using its feeding ratio, and add them to the flour and water of the final dough. Total flour is then 100%, and the hydration of the whole formula includes the water from the starter. Without that split, the hydration looks higher or lower than the dough really is.

Does milk or egg count as water?

Conventions differ. This calculator treats the amount in the Water field as the only liquid in the hydration figure. If you add milk, eggs or oil, enter them in Other, or convert them to their water share yourself if the recipe calls for that.

How the calculation works

Baker's percentage divides the weight of each ingredient by the weight of the flour and multiplies by 100, so flour is always 100%. If a recipe uses several flours, their combined weight is the 100%. Hydration is the water percentage. To scale a formula to a target dough weight, the calculator adds up the percentages (flour's 100% plus everything else), divides the target by that total to find the flour weight, and multiplies the flour weight by each percentage. All weights must be in one unit, because the percentages are ratios.

Worked example

A pizza dough uses 500 g of flour, 325 g of water, 10 g of salt and 2 g of yeast. Water is 325 ÷ 500 = 65% of the flour, so the hydration is 65%. Salt is 2% and yeast is 0.4%. The percentages add up to 167.4% and the whole dough weighs 837 g.

To make 1200 g of the same dough, divide by the total: 1200 ÷ 1.674 = 716.8 g of flour. Then water is 465.9 g, salt 14.3 g and yeast 2.9 g, and these add up to 1200 g.

Common mistakes

• Using the total dough weight as the base. The percentages are always of the flour, so they add up to more than 100%.
• Mixing units in one formula. If the flour is in grams and the water in ounces, the percentages are meaningless. Convert everything first.
• Leaving out the flour and water in the starter. A levain or poolish carries flour and water that belong in the totals.

Sources and related calculators

Method: baker's math as used in baking texts, where every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight. Related: yeast converter, butter converter and cake pan converter.