Baker's Percentage Calculator

Divide each ingredient weight by the total flour weight, then multiply by 100. The baker's percentage formula runs on one reference: flour. A dough with 500 g flour (17.6 oz), 340 g water, 10 g salt, and 5 g yeast calculates to 100% flour, 68% water, 2% salt, and 1% yeast. Enter the same weights into a baker's percentage calculator and the percentage field fills in for you, which is the faster route for formulas with more than 6 ingredients.

67% hydration means the water weight equals 67% of the flour weight. For every 100 g of flour (3.5 oz), the dough carries 67 g (2.4 oz) of water. A 1000 g flour batch at 67% hydration contains 670 g of water. Dough hydration of 67% produces a manageable, slightly tacky dough suited to sandwich bread; 75–80% hydration, the range Chad Robertson uses at Tartine Bakery, produces an open, holey crumb; above 85% the dough becomes slack and needs gentle folding during bulk fermentation rather than kneading.

Baker's percentage has 5 main uses in bread baking: scaling a formula to any batch size with one multiplication, comparing two recipes ingredient by ingredient, adjusting dough hydration to match a new flour, communicating a formula across units and countries without confusion, and diagnosing a dough — a salt percentage above 2.2% or a hydration far from a flour's capability shows up instantly in the percentages. Recipe scaling is the daily workhorse in commercial bakeries, and the same math scales a home formula from 1 loaf to 2 with identical dough consistency.

The percentage of flour in baker's math is always 100%. Flour is the reference point of the entire system, so the flour weight is defined as 100% and every other ingredient is measured against the total flour weight. Blended flours still total 100%: 900 g white flour plus 100 g whole wheat in a 1000 g formula reads as 90% white flour and 10% whole wheat. Whole grain flours absorb more water, so bakers raise hydration by 3–5 percentage points when the whole grain share climbs.

A typical sourdough bread formula is 100% flour, 75–80% water, 2% salt, and 15–20% sourdough starter (levain). A standard country loaf from the Tartine Bakery tradition runs 78% hydration; beginners get cleaner results at 72–75% because stiffer dough holds shape through bulk fermentation and proofing. An autolyse — flour and water rested before salt and starter join — changes handling, not the percentages, and the levain percentage controls fermentation speed more than flavor. A baker's percentage calculator built for sourdough adds the starter's own flour and water back into the totals so the printed hydration stays true.

The typical baker's ratio for a pound cake is 1:1:1:1 — flour 100%, sugar 100%, egg 100%, and butter 100% — while a standard layer cake runs flour 100%, sugar 100–120%, butter 40–60%, egg 50–75%, and liquid 40–75%. Cake ratios measure eggs and liquid as weights, not counts or volumes, which is why pastry chefs weigh every ingredient. Baker's math applies to cookies the same way — a classic chocolate chip cookie formula lands near flour 100%, butter 60%, sugar 75% (brown plus white), and egg 15% — so a baker's percentage calculator works for any bake, not only bread.

Baker's percent means an ingredient weight stated as a percentage of the total flour weight, with flour fixed at 100%. The notation reads differently from ordinary math: in a 70% hydration dough, water is 70% of the flour weight, not 70% of the dough weight. Bakers adopted the system because it keeps the ingredient ratio visible at any batch size — 68% hydration describes a dough whether the flour weighs 500 g, 5 kg (11 lb), or 50 kg — and a dough calculator or spreadsheet reads the same formula a home baker tests and a bakery produces. Scales from Escali, OXO, and ThermoWorks make the weights easy; the baker's percentage calculator makes the math instant.

In baker's percentage notation, total flour is set as the 100% baseline. Every other ingredient (water, salt, yeast, starter, fats, sugars) is calculated as a proportion of that flour weight. For example, a dough with 100% flour, 68% water, 2% salt, and 1% yeast sums to 171% total dough weight. Enriched doughs with butter and sugar often exceed 200%.

Dough hydration is the total weight of water (and other liquid liquids) divided by the total weight of flour, expressed as a percentage. For example, 340 grams of water mixed with 500 grams of flour equals 68% hydration (340 ÷ 500 × 100). Higher hydration produces an open, custard-like, holey crumb, while lower hydration yields a firmer, easier-to-shape sandwich loaf.

The sum of all flours always equals 100%. For example, if a rustic bread uses 800 grams of bread flour and 200 grams of whole wheat flour, the total flour weight is 1000g. Bread flour represents 80% and whole wheat represents 20%, summing to the 100% flour reference.

Use reverse scaling: divide your target dough weight by the sum of all percentages (expressed as a decimal, e.g., 171% = 1.71) to find the required flour weight. Then multiply that flour weight by each ingredient's percentage. For a 900 g dough at 171% total: Flour = 900 ÷ 1.71 = 526.3 g, Water = 526.3 × 0.68 = 357.9 g, Salt = 526.3 × 0.02 = 10.5 g, Yeast = 526.3 × 0.01 = 5.3 g.