Baker’s percentage calculator
Paste in any bread recipe to see it as baker’s percentages, then scale it to the dough weight you need. Works for sourdough, yeasted bread, pizza and focaccia.
Leave at 0 to keep your amounts.
Baker’s percentages
| Ingredient | Percent | Grams |
|---|---|---|
| Bread flour | 90% | 450 g |
| Whole wheat flour | 10% | 50 g |
| Water | 75% | 375 g |
| Starter | 20% | 100 g |
| Salt | 2% | 10 g |
Flour 500 g is 100%. Total dough 985 g
True hydration 77.3% with the starter counted
Reading baker’s percentages
The total weight of flour is always 100%. Every other ingredient is written as a share of that flour. A dough of 1000 g flour, 700 g water, 200 g starter and 20 g salt reads as 100%, 70%, 20% and 2%.
Written this way, a recipe works at any size. Double the flour and every other number follows. That’s also how you compare recipes: 70% water is 70% water, whether the recipe makes one loaf or twenty.
Scaling a recipe
To scale, decide the total dough weight you want. A 900 g loaf from a recipe that makes 985 g of dough is a factor of 0.91, and every ingredient is multiplied by it. The percentages don’t change, so the bread doesn’t either.
If you’d rather start from percentages and a loaf size, the sourdough calculator builds the recipe for you.
Questions bakers ask
Why do baker’s percentages add up to more than 100%?
Because each ingredient is measured against the flour, not against the whole dough. Flour is 100%, water might be 75%, salt 2%, so a simple dough totals 177%.
What if my recipe uses two or more flours?
Mark every flour as Flour. Together they make up 100%, and each one shows its share, for example 90% bread flour and 10% whole wheat.
Should starter be counted as flour?
In a classic baker’s percentage table, starter is listed as its own ingredient, as this calculator does. The true hydration below the table does count the flour and water inside the starter.
How do I scale a recipe?
Enter the total dough weight you want under Scale to total dough. Every ingredient changes by the same factor, so the percentages stay the same.