Most bread failures happen before a single ingredient touches a bowl. The culprit is not bad technique or a faulty oven — it is guesswork dressed up as a recipe. "A handful of salt." "About two cups of water." "One sachet of yeast." These are not instructions; they are approximations, and in baking, approximations compound.
Professional bakers solved this decades ago with a system called baker's percentage. Every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of total flour weight. You enter the flour, the percentages do the rest. The math is the same whether you are making one loaf or two hundred — and the result is the same too. This formula works every time, for every baker, in every kitchen.
Our Baker's Percentage Calculator converts baker's percentages into exact ingredient weights. Enter your flour weight (or select a preset), adjust hydration, salt, yeast, and optional ingredients, and instantly get accurate measurements in grams (g), kilograms (kg), ounces (oz), or pounds (lb). Perfect for scaling bread recipes with consistent, reliable results.
Baker's percentage is a recipe notation system used by professional bakers, formula scientists, and anyone serious about consistent results. The core rule is simple: every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight, and flour is always 100%. Other ingredients can — and often do — sum to more than 100% combined, which trips up new bakers who assume the numbers should add to 100 like a normal percentage breakdown.
They do not need to. The percentages are not slices of a pie — they are ratios relative to flour. A formula at 70% hydration, 2% salt, and 0.5% yeast tells you: for every 100 g of flour, use 70 g of water, 2 g of salt, and 0.5 g of yeast. Scale that to 1,000 g of flour, and every number scales with it perfectly.
No matter the batch size, flour is the anchor at 100%. Every other ingredient is a ratio of flour weight — not of total dough weight, and not of each other.
A lean dough at 70% hydration and 2% salt has a formula total of 172%. That is correct. The total of all baker's percentages is always greater than 100% — and the gap tells you how much water, salt, and enrichments are in the recipe.
A formula in baker's percentages scales perfectly to any size. Baking 10× more dough? Multiply flour by 10. Every other ingredient stays at the same percentage. No recalculation, no ratio drift, no errors.
Flour is the structural backbone of every bread dough. It provides gluten — the protein network that traps gas, holds shape, and gives bread its chew. Everything else in the formula modifies what that gluten does: water hydrates it, salt tightens it, yeast inflates it, fat tenderises it. It makes sense, then, that flour is the measurement reference point for every other ingredient.
Using flour as the 100% baseline makes it easy to scale bread recipes without changing ingredient ratios. Instead of recalculating every ingredient manually, simply apply the baker's percentages to the new flour weight. For example, a dough with 500 g flour and 350 g water has a hydration of 70%. If you reduce the flour to 250 g, the water automatically becomes 175 g. This simple system eliminates guesswork and ensures consistent, repeatable results regardless of batch size.
Once you know the flour weight and each baker's percentage, calculating ingredient weights is simple. Multiply the flour weight by each ingredient's percentage (divided by 100) to get the exact amount needed.
Flour: 1,000 g
Hydration: 70%
Salt: 2%
Instant Yeast: 0.5%
| Ingredient | Baker's % | Calculation | Weight (g) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100% | 1,000 × 1.00 | 1,000.0 g |
| Water | 70% | 1,000 × 0.70 | 700.0 g |
| Salt | 2% | 1,000 × 0.02 | 20.0 g |
| Instant Yeast | 0.5% | 1,000 × 0.005 | 5.0 g |
| Total Dough | 172.5% | — | 1,725.0 g |
In this example, the total baker's percentage is 172.5%, meaning the finished dough weighs 172.5% of the flour weight. The total percentage is a quick way to verify a formula—around 170–180% is typical for many lean bread doughs, while unusually high totals may indicate an error.
If you already have a recipe with ingredient weights, you can quickly convert each ingredient to a baker's percentage. This makes it easier to compare bread recipes, understand dough hydration and ingredient ratios, and scale or adapt any formula with confidence.
A sourdough recipe uses 600 g flour, 450 g water, 12 g salt, and 120 g starter. What are the baker's percentages?
The result — 100% flour, 75% hydration, 2% salt, 20% starter — is now a portable formula. You can reproduce it at 400 g flour or 4,000 g flour without changing any percentage. That is the power of converting your recipes into baker's percentage format.
Baker's percentage runs in both directions. Forward: you know the flour weight, you calculate ingredient weights. Reverse: you know what each ingredient weighs, you recover the percentages. Both are useful, and both use the same single formula — just rearranged.
You know the flour weight and percentages. You calculate how many grams of each ingredient to weigh out.
You know the ingredient weights from an existing recipe. You recover the percentages so the formula is scale-independent.
Yes — and this is one of baker's percentage's most practical strengths. Suppose a bakery book gives you a formula in grams for a 2 kg batch. You need a 5 kg batch. Step one: convert the given weights to percentages (reverse direction). Step two: apply those percentages to your target flour weight (forward direction). You have scaled the recipe precisely without touching any ratio.
This calculator only runs the forward direction — flour weight and percentages in, ingredient weights out. To convert an existing recipe's weights into percentages, divide each ingredient by the flour weight and multiply by 100. It takes about 30 seconds per ingredient.
Each bread type has its own typical baker's percentage ranges. These ratios act as a formula fingerprint. They help you identify the style of bread, verify that a recipe is balanced, and troubleshoot unexpected baking results.
Based on the above examples, Hydration is the main factor that distinguishes one bread style from another. Salt, however, stays remarkably consistent. Most savory bread formulas use 1.8%–2.2% salt. Lower levels can produce bland bread, while higher percentages may slow yeast fermentation. This makes salt one of the most consistent values in baker's percentages.
Sourdough starter requires one extra step because it contains both flour and water. To calculate baker's percentages accurately, include each portion in your formula. Otherwise, your dough hydration and ingredient ratios will be incorrect.
Most sourdough bread recipes use 10%–25% starter (relative to flour weight). Lower percentages slow fermentation and are ideal for long proofs. Higher percentages speed fermentation and work well for same-day baking or warm kitchens. Percentages above 30% are less common in standard sourdough bread.
Every gram of sourdough starter contains flour and water. How much of each depends on the starter's own hydration. A 100% hydration starter — the most common — is equal parts flour and water: 200 g of starter contains 100 g flour and 100 g water. A stiffer starter (75%) has more flour per gram; a wetter starter (125%) has more water.
This calculator handles that split automatically. Enter your starter percentage and its hydration, and it calculates how much of your total flour and water are already inside the starter — so the "fresh flour" and "fresh water" fields tell you exactly what to weigh on the bench.
Baker's percentages and approximate ingredient weights for 1,000 g of flour. Use the calculator above for any other flour weight or custom percentages.
| Bread Style | Hydration | Salt | Yeast / Starter | Water (g) | Salt (g) | Leaven (g) | Total Dough (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic White Sandwich | 68% | 2% | 0.8% instant yeast | 680 | 20 | 8 | 1,708 |
| Baguette | 65% | 2% | 0.3% instant yeast | 650 | 20 | 3 | 1,673 |
| Pizza Dough (Neapolitan) | 62% | 2.8% | 0.1% instant yeast | 620 | 28 | 1 | 1,649 |
| Sourdough Country Loaf | 75% | 2% | 20% starter (100% hyd.) | 750 | 20 | 200 | 1,970 |
| Focaccia | 80% | 2% | 0.5% instant yeast | 800 | 20 | 5 | 1,825 |
| Ciabatta | 85% | 2% | 0.4% instant yeast | 850 | 20 | 4 | 1,874 |
| Bagels | 55% | 1.8% | 1% instant yeast | 550 | 18 | 10 | 1,578 |
| Whole Wheat Loaf | 72% | 2% | 1% instant yeast | 720 | 20 | 10 | 1,750 |
* Flour = 1,000 g in all cases. Sourdough totals include starter weight. All figures rounded. Use the calculator above for custom flour weights or different percentages.
Click any card to load these values into the calculator above.
Baker's percentages express every ingredient as a percentage of the total flour weight, with flour always equal to 100%. For example, 70% hydration means 70 g of water for every 100 g of flour, regardless of batch size. Unlike nutritional percentages, baker's percentages do not add up to 100%. A lean dough with 70% water, 2% salt, and 0.5% yeast has a total baker's percentage of 172.5%.
Divide each ingredient's weight by the flour weight, then multiply by 100. For example, if a recipe uses 500 g flour and 350 g water, the hydration is (350 ÷ 500) × 100 = 70%. Repeat this for every ingredient to convert the recipe into baker's percentages. Always use the flour weight as the base—not the total dough weight.
Most sourdough bread recipes use between 10% and 25% starter as a percentage of total flour. Lower percentages (10–15%) ferment more slowly and develop deeper, more complex sour flavour — suited to overnight or cold proofing. Higher percentages (20–30%) speed the process up and tend to produce a milder, more open crumb. The right percentage depends on your kitchen temperature, starter strength, and available time — not a universal right answer.
The starter percentage is calculated the same way as any other ingredient: Starter % = (Starter Weight ÷ Flour Weight) × 100. What makes sourdough different is that the starter is itself a mix of flour and water — usually equal parts in a 100% hydration starter. Those internal fractions count toward your formula's total flour and water, so your "fresh add" amounts of flour and water on the bench are adjusted to account for what is already inside the starter. This calculator handles that split automatically when you enter a starter percentage and hydration.
Flour is the foundation of every bread formula, so it is always defined as 100%. Measuring all other ingredients relative to the flour keeps ingredient ratios consistent, making recipes easy to compare, scale, and adjust. Using total dough weight would change every percentage whenever an ingredient is added or removed.
No — baker's percentage requires weight measurements. A cup of flour can range from 120 g to 160 g depending on sifting, packing, and humidity, which is a variance of up to 30%. At that level of inconsistency, percentages become meaningless because your "100% flour" is not a fixed number. Once you switch to weighing ingredients in grams, baker's percentage becomes immediately useful and every formula becomes precisely reproducible.
For most savoury breads, 1.8% to 2.2% salt is the standard range. Below 1.5% and bread tastes noticeably flat; above 2.5% and it starts to taste overly salty and can inhibit yeast activity. The vast majority of professional bread formulas land at exactly 2%. For enriched breads with sugar (brioche, milk bread), you may drop to 1.5–1.8% since the sweetness compensates for a lighter salt presence. For pretzels and certain shaped rolls, surface salt means a lower dough salt percentage (around 1.5%) is typical.
Two steps. First, convert your existing recipe to baker's percentages by dividing each ingredient by the flour weight and multiplying by 100. Second, decide on your new flour weight for the target batch size, then multiply each percentage by the new flour weight to get the new ingredient weights. If your original recipe used 500 g flour and you want to make a batch with 1,500 g flour, multiply every ingredient weight by 3. The ratios are identical — only the quantities change.
Yes — any ingredient can be expressed as a baker's percentage of flour. Sugar at 5% means 5 g of sugar per 100 g of flour. Oil at 3% means 3 g of oil. Enriched doughs like brioche or Japanese milk bread may include eggs, butter, and sugar totalling 50–80% of flour, taking the total baker's percentage well above 200%. The system works for any ingredient, with flour as the consistent reference point.
Baker's percentage is one of those concepts that sounds technical until you use it once — and then you cannot imagine baking without it. It removes guesswork without removing creativity. You can still experiment, adjust hydration, test different salt levels, or try a new starter percentage. The difference is that every experiment is reproducible. You know exactly what you did, you can do it again, and you can scale it.
The single most important habit it builds is thinking in ratios instead of quantities. A recipe that says "700 g water to 1,000 g flour" is a specific batch. A recipe that says "70% hydration" is a formula — flexible, portable, and usable at any size in any kitchen. Writing your formulas in baker's percentage is the difference between a recipe you made once and one you own.
Use this calculator to convert your favourite recipes, benchmark new formulas, and get your ingredient weights right before you touch anything. The math takes two seconds. The payoff is consistent bread, every time.
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