Baker’s percentage calculator
Convert between ingredient weights and baker’s percentages, and scale a formula to any flour weight.
What it answers
What are the baker’s percentages of this formula, and what weights do I need for a different batch size?
What it assumes
- Total flour weight is the 100 per cent baseline, following standard baker’s percentage.
- Where more than one flour is present, their weights are summed to form the baseline.
- Weights are in grams. The arithmetic is unit-agnostic, but mixing units in one formula will give meaningless results.
Your formula
| Ingredient | Weight (g) | Is flour? | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
Baker’s percentages
| Ingredient | Weight | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Bread flour (flour) | 1000 g | 100% |
| Water | 700 g | 70% |
| Salt | 20 g | 2% |
| Yeast | 10 g | 1% |
Hydration
70% — water as a percentage of flour weight. Water inside a preferment or starter is only counted if you entered it as a separate ingredient, which is the most common source of a wrong hydration figure.
How this was calculated
Establish the flour baseline
- Formula
F = sum of every ingredient marked as flour- With your numbers
F = Bread flour = 1000- Result
- F = 1000 g, which is 100%
Express each ingredient against the baseline
- Formula
P(i) = W(i) ÷ F × 100- With your numbers
where W(i) is the weight of ingredient i in grams and F = 1000 g- Result
- See the table below
Total the formula
- Formula
T = sum of every ingredient weight- With your numbers
T = 1000 + 700 + 20 + 10- Result
- T = 1730 g, which is 173% of flour weight
Hydration
- Formula
H = W(water) ÷ F × 100- With your numbers
H = 700 ÷ 1000 × 100- Result
- H = 70%
Scale it
If the convention itself is unfamiliar, the guide on understanding baker’s percentage explains why every professional formula uses it and where it gets subtle.
What it cannot tell you
It calculates proportions and knows nothing about process. Two doughs at identical percentages fermented differently are different breads.
It cannot tell you whether a percentage is sensible for what you are making — only what it is.
Flour and water inside a preferment must be entered as separate ingredients if you want them counted, which is the most common source of error in hydration figures.
It does not account for how a particular flour absorbs water. Seventy per cent in a strong white and 70 per cent in a wholemeal are not comparable doughs.