Baker’s Percentage Calculator
Turn flour weight into a full dough formula
Baker’s percentages, dough hydration and scaling FAQ
What is baker’s percentage?
In baker’s math, flour is always 100%. Every other ingredient is written as a percentage of the total flour weight, not of the total dough. That makes it easy to scale recipes up or down and compare formulas across books and websites.
Should I use total flour or just one of the flours?
Always use the combined weight of all flours as your 100% base. If you mix bread flour and whole wheat, add them together and enter that number as “Total flour”. The calculator then treats every percentage as a slice of that total.
What is a typical hydration percentage for bread?
Many straight doughs sit between 60–70% hydration. Rustic, open-crumb loaves might push higher, while enriched sandwich breads can be a bit lower. Flour type and handling technique matter, so treat hydration as something to adjust by feel, not a rule.
How much salt should I use in dough?
A very common starting point is around 2% salt based on flour weight. Some bakers prefer slightly less for low-sodium bread or more for bold flavour, but staying near 1.8–2.3% keeps you in a familiar range most recipes use.
Can I enter 0% for salt or yeast?
Yes. Setting an ingredient to 0% simply means it is absent from the formula. Salt-free breads exist, and sourdough formulas may use no commercial yeast at all. The calculator will update totals even when some rows are zero.
Does this calculator handle sourdough starter automatically?
Not directly. Sourdough starter contains both flour and water, so most bakers treat starter as a separate calculation. You can still adapt these numbers for sourdough, but for detailed starter math a dedicated sourdough starter calculator will be more precise.
Why work in percentages instead of cups?
Measuring by weight plus baker’s percentages makes doughs repeatable. Once you know “this loaf is 70% hydration, 2% salt and 0.7% instant yeast”, you can swap brands of flour, change batch size or tweak a single variable without losing the overall balance.
Can I scale this dough for a different pan size?
Yes. Decide how much dough you need for the new pan or number of loaves, then work backwards to the required flour weight. Enter that flour weight, keep the same percentages, and the calculator will give you a scaled-up or scaled-down ingredient list automatically.
How to use this baker’s percentage calculator
This tool is designed to take a single decision — how much flour you want to use — and turn it into a complete, repeatable dough formula with sensible baker’s percentages. Instead of hunting through recipes, you can blend your own hydration, salt and yeast and always know exactly what you did.
1. Choose your weighing unit and total flour weight
Start by picking whether you weigh in ounces (oz) or grams (g). Enter the combined weight of all flours you plan to use. That number becomes your dough’s 100% flour base. If you decide later that you want bigger or smaller loaves, just change this one number and recalculate.
2. Set hydration, salt and yeast percentages
Next, choose a hydration percentage that matches the style of bread you want. Something around 60–70% is common for everyday loaves. Add your salt % (often near 2%), then set the yeast % according to how fast you want the dough to rise. You keep the shape of the formula while the tool worries about the actual weights.
3. Read the ingredient weights in your chosen unit
When you hit Build dough formula, the left column lists each ingredient as a weight in your chosen unit, with the other unit shown in brackets. You will see all the key pieces in one place: flour, water, salt, yeast and total dough mass. This is the number you can check against pan recommendations or your mixer’s comfortable capacity.
4. Use the percentage column as your master recipe
The right column restates the same dough as a classic baker’s percentage table. Flour is 100%, and every other row is the percentage you entered. That view makes it easy to compare formulas with books, online recipes or your own notes from previous bakes, even when the total flour weight is different.
5. Save the copied summary for next time
Tap Copy summary and paste the text into a notes app or recipe manager. When a loaf turns out perfectly, you have a clear record of both the flour weight and the percentages. Next time you can recreate the dough exactly or nudge hydration, salt or yeast while keeping everything else stable.
Used this way, the calculator becomes a tiny formula lab: you keep your favourite doughs consistent, adjust them deliberately, and scale them to any batch size without re-doing maths on a scrap of paper each time.
How the baker’s percentage math works
Baker’s percentages revolve around a single rule: total flour is 100%. Everything else is a slice of that flour weight. The calculator follows the same rule whether you choose ounces or grams so that the underlying formula is always clear and simple.
1. Converting everything through grams internally
Internally, the tool performs all calculations in grams. If you select ounces, your flour entry is converted to grams using:
flour_g = flour_oz × 28.3495
All ingredient weights are computed in grams first. At the end, the calculator converts back to your chosen unit and shows that number first with the other unit in brackets for easy cross-checking.
2. From flour weight to water, salt and yeast
Let F be the total flour weight in grams, and let Pₓ be the percentage for ingredient x. The weight of each ingredient in grams is:
weightₓ_g = F × (Pₓ ÷ 100)
For example, with F = 500 g and water at 70%, the calculator does 500 × 0.70 = 350 g water. The same pattern is used for salt and yeast.
3. Total dough mass and effective hydration
Once all ingredient weights are known, the total dough mass is just the sum:
dough_total_g = flour_g + water_g + salt_g + yeast_g
Hydration is reported as:
hydration % = (water_g ÷ flour_g) × 100
This matches how bakers normally talk about hydration and lets you line your numbers up with books and professional formulas.
4. Switching between ounces and grams
When you choose ounces as the main unit, the calculator still keeps grams internally and uses:
weight_oz = weight_g ÷ 28.3495
Rounded values are displayed with sensible precision so you can weigh comfortably on either imperial or metric scales without the numbers feeling awkward.
By keeping the math transparent and consistent, the tool lets you treat every recipe you bake as a clear baker’s percentage formula first and a set of ounces or grams second, which is exactly how professional bakers think about dough.
References and further reading on baker’s percentages
Explore these resources alongside this calculator when you want to go deeper on dough formulas:
- King Arthur Baking — Baker’s percentage reference — clear explanation of baker’s math with worked examples for bread formulas.
- The Perfect Loaf — Introduction to baker’s percentages — home-baker focused guide to using baker’s math to scale and tweak bread recipes.
- The Fresh Loaf community — long-running forum where bakers share formulas, many written in baker’s percentages.
- Culinary math — baker’s percentage overview — brief reference-style summary of the baker’s percentage concept for culinary students.
When you test or tweak a dough, note down both the flour weight and baker’s percentages. That record, plus your own tasting notes, becomes the best reference for how the numbers from this calculator behave in your kitchen and oven.