Baker's Percentage Calculator

Baker's percentage expresses every ingredient as a ratio of the total flour weight. Flour is always 100%. So 700g water in a 1kg flour recipe is 70%. The key benefit: percentages stay constant regardless of batch size, so scaling is simple and you can compare any two recipes side by side.

Enter all ingredient weights into the calculator. It divides each ingredient by the total flour weight and multiplies by 100. Keep those percentages; they are your recipe's fingerprint. Next time, pick any flour amount and multiply by each percentage to get every other weight.

Decide how much flour you want to use. Multiply that flour weight by each ingredient's percentage (÷ 100). For a 600g flour batch at 72% hydration and 2% salt: water = 600 × 0.72 = 432g, salt = 600 × 0.02 = 12g. That's it.

Water: 60–85% (hydration). Salt: 1.8–2.2%. Instant dry yeast: 0.5–1.5%. Sourdough starter: 10–25%. Butter (enriched breads): 5–20%. Sugar: 2–10% (enriched). Fat content above 20% starts to inhibit yeast activity.

Baker's percentage is less standard in pastry, where recipes are often expressed as ratios to total recipe weight. However, the calculator still works. Just note that in pastry, flour may not always be the dominant ingredient, so the percentages will not follow bread conventions.

Sum all flour weights to get the total flour base. Each individual flour is then expressed as a percentage of that total. For example, 400g bread flour + 100g whole wheat = 500g total flour. Bread flour is 80%, whole wheat is 20%. Water and salt are still calculated against the 500g total.

True (weight) percentage divides each ingredient by the total recipe weight. Baker's percentage divides by flour weight only. In a 70% hydration recipe, the true percentage of water is roughly 41% (water ÷ total dough weight). Baker's percentage is preferred in professional baking because it's easier to scale and compare.

The flour and water inside a preferment (poolish, biga, levain) count toward the total flour and water in the recipe. When using a preferment, you will see two sections: the preferment ingredients and the final dough ingredients. The overall hydration is calculated across both.