What baker’s percentages are
Bakers write recipes as percentages of the flour weight, which is always 100%. A dough with 1,000 g of flour and 700 g of water has 70% hydration. The method makes recipes easy to scale and compare: whatever the batch size, the proportions stay the same. This calculator converts those percentages into grams, from either the flour you have or the dough you want.
The formulas
- Ingredient weight = flour × ingredient percentage ÷ 100
- Total dough = flour × (1 + sum of all percentages ÷ 100)
- Flour for a target dough weight = dough weight ÷ (1 + sum of percentages ÷ 100)
- True hydration with starter = (water + starter ÷ 2) ÷ (flour + starter ÷ 2), for a starter made of equal weights of flour and water
Worked example: a country loaf
500 g of flour at 70% hydration, 2% salt and 1% instant yeast:
- Water: 500 × 0.70 = 350 g.
- Salt: 500 × 0.02 = 10 g.
- Yeast: 500 × 0.01 = 5 g.
- Dough: 500 × 1.73 = 865 g, one large loaf.
Replace the yeast with 20% sourdough starter and the starter adds 100 g: 50 g of flour and 50 g of water. The true hydration becomes (350 + 50) ÷ (500 + 50) = 72.7%, and the dough weighs 965 g.
Starting from the dough you need
To make two 450-g loaves at the same percentages, the dough weight is 900 g, so the flour is 900 ÷ 1.73 = 520 g. The calculator then gives 364 g of water, 10.4 g of salt and 5.2 g of yeast.
Typical hydration levels
| Hydration | Dough | Typical breads |
|---|---|---|
| 55–62% | Stiff | Bagels, pretzels, sandwich bread |
| 62–68% | Medium | Baguettes, rolls, pizza |
| 68–75% | Soft | Country loaves, focaccia |
| 75–85% | Wet | Ciabatta, open-crumb sourdough |
Typical percentages for the rest
- Salt: 1.8 to 2.2%. Less tastes flat; more slows fermentation.
- Instant yeast: 0.5 to 1.5%. Use the low end for long or overnight rises.
- Sourdough starter: 10 to 25%.
- Fat and sugar: 0 for lean bread, 5 to 10% each for soft rolls, much more for brioche.
Tips
- Flour changes everything. Whole-wheat and high-protein flours absorb more water, so the same 70% feels stiffer than with all-purpose flour.
- Hold some water back. Add the last 5% of water only if the dough feels tight.
- Weigh small amounts carefully. A pocket scale with 0.1-g precision helps for salt and yeast.