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Baker's Percentage Calculator

Calculators · Added

A bread formula is written against the weight of the flour: flour is 100%, and every other ingredient is a percentage of it. That makes two recipes at different sizes directly comparable, and scaling either one a single multiplication.

Working from
IngredientWeight (g)Role

How to use the baker's percentage calculator

  1. 1Enter your ingredients with their weights, and mark which are flour and which are liquid.
  2. 2Read the percentages, the hydration and the salt figure.
  3. 3Switch the direction to go the other way: enter percentages and a flour weight, or a target dough weight.
  4. 4Set the number of pieces to get the weight to divide the dough into.

Examples

A standard loaf

Input
500 g flour, 325 g water, 10 g salt, 5 g yeast
Result
65% hydration, 2% salt, 840 g of dough

Scaling to a tin

Input
The same formula at a 900 g target dough weight
Result
536 g flour, 348 g water, 10.7 g salt, 5.4 g yeast

About the baker's percentage calculator

Why bakers weigh and cooks measure

A cup of flour can vary by up to 20% depending on whether it was scooped, spooned or sifted, and on how humid the kitchen is. In most cooking that does not matter. In bread it matters more than almost anything else, because the ratio of water to flour is what determines the dough.

Percentages of an uncertain measurement are not worth calculating, which is why the whole system is built on weight. It is also why a bread recipe in cups is much harder to reproduce than the same recipe in grams, even when both are written by the same person.

Scaling to a tin rather than a number

The practical question is usually not "how do I double this" but "how much dough does my tin want". A 900 g loaf tin wants roughly 900 g of dough; a batch of rolls wants a piece weight times a count. Working backwards from the finished dough weight to the flour weight is one division by the percentage total, which is what the target dough weight field does.

Allow for the bake. A loaf loses roughly 10 to 15% of its weight as steam in the oven, so a 900 g piece of dough comes out closer to 780 g of bread — which is the figure a bakery would be selling by, and the reason a tin size and a loaf weight never quite match.

Frequently asked questions

Why do the percentages add up to more than 100?
Because they are all measured against the flour rather than against the total. Flour is 100% by definition, so a straightforward bread comes to about 168% once water, salt and yeast are added. It looks wrong the first time and it is the notation working exactly as intended — the total is a useful number in its own right, since dough weight is flour weight times that percentage.
What does hydration actually tell me?
How the dough will handle. Below 60% it is stiff and kneads cleanly; 60 to 65% is a standard sandwich loaf; 65 to 75% is rustic and sourdough territory, slack and slightly sticky; above 75% the dough wants folding rather than kneading and is worked with wet hands. It is the single figure that most determines what the process will feel like.
Why does a starter complicate the numbers?
Because it is both flour and water, and counting it as one ingredient understates both. A 100% hydration starter is half flour and half water by weight, so 200 g of it adds 100 g to the flour total and 100 g to the liquid total. Ignoring that gives a hydration figure several points below the truth, which is why the tool flags a starter by name.
How much salt should bread have?
Conventionally 1.8 to 2.2% of the flour weight. Salt does more than season: it tightens the gluten and slows the yeast, so a dough below about 1.5% tastes flat and handles slack, while one above 2.5% proves noticeably more slowly. The tool flags both directions.

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