Baking
Baker's Percentage Calculator
A baker's percentage is the weight of an ingredient divided by the weight of the flour, times 100. A dough with 500 grams of flour, 350 grams of water and 10 grams of salt is 70 percent hydration and 2 percent salt. Flour is always 100 percent. Enter your weights below to convert a recipe.
Hydration
Enter the flour weight to see the percentages.
Show the math
Hydration chart
| Hydration | 250 g flour | 500 g flour | 750 g flour | 1,000 g flour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55% | 138 g | 275 g | 413 g | 550 g |
| 60% | 150 g | 300 g | 450 g | 600 g |
| 65% | 163 g | 325 g | 488 g | 650 g |
| 70% | 175 g | 350 g | 525 g | 700 g |
| 75% | 188 g | 375 g | 563 g | 750 g |
| 80% | 200 g | 400 g | 600 g | 800 g |
| 85% | 213 g | 425 g | 638 g | 850 g |
How the calculator works
Baker’s percentages describe a dough by comparing everything to the flour.
baker’s percentage = ingredient weight / flour weight x 100
Flour is always 100 percent, whatever it weighs. Water, salt, yeast and anything else are then written as a share of that. The calculator takes the weights from your recipe and does the division for each one.
The percentages do not add up to 100, and they are not meant to. A dough at 70 percent water and 2 percent salt is 100 + 70 + 2 = 172 percent in total. That total is useful: it is what you divide by when you want to work back from a dough weight to a flour weight.
Worked example
A sandwich loaf recipe lists 500 grams of flour, 350 grams of water, 10 grams of salt, 5 grams of yeast and 15 grams of oil.
- Water: 350 / 500 x 100 = 70 percent
- Salt: 10 / 500 x 100 = 2 percent
- Yeast: 5 / 500 x 100 = 1 percent
- Oil: 15 / 500 x 100 = 3 percent
- Total dough: 500 + 350 + 10 + 5 + 15 = 880 grams
Written as a formula, the recipe is: flour 100, water 70, salt 2, yeast 1, oil 3. Those five numbers describe the bread at any size.
Why bakers use percentages
Scaling is one multiplication. To make the loaf above with 800 grams of flour, multiply 800 by each percentage: 560 grams of water, 16 of salt, 8 of yeast, 24 of oil. No ratios to keep in your head.
Recipes become comparable. Two recipes in cups look nothing alike. Written as percentages you can see at once that one is 62 percent hydration and the other 78, and you know which will be the stiffer dough before you mix either.
Mistakes show up. Salt in bread usually sits near 2 percent of the flour. If a recipe works out at 0.5 percent or 5 percent, something was mistyped or mismeasured, and the percentage tells you before the loaf does.
Reading hydration
Hydration is the number bakers look at first, because it says most about how a dough will handle.
- Below 60 percent: stiff dough, typical of bagels and some sandwich breads
- 60 to 70 percent: easy to knead and shape, the range of most everyday loaves
- 70 to 80 percent: soft and sticky, needing folds instead of kneading
- Above 80 percent: very wet, used for ciabatta and similar open breads
These bands are a guide, not a rule. Whole grain flours take up more water than white flour, so a whole wheat dough at 75 percent can feel like a white dough at 68.
The chart above gives the grams of water for common flour weights at each hydration.
From percentages back to weights
Often you know the dough weight you want, not the flour weight. Use the total percentage.
flour = dough weight / (total percentage / 100)
For a 900 gram dough with the formula above (total 176 percent): 900 / 1.76 = 511 grams of flour. Then water is 511 x 0.70 = 358 grams, salt 10 grams, yeast 5 grams and oil 15 grams.
The Sourdough Calculator and Pizza Dough Calculator on this site do that step for you, starting from the dough weight.
Starters and preferments
A sourdough starter, poolish or biga is made of flour and water, so it has to be split and counted with them. Otherwise the hydration you calculate is lower than the real one.
Take 450 grams of flour, 300 grams of water and 100 grams of starter kept at equal parts flour and water. The starter adds 50 grams of each:
- Total flour: 450 + 50 = 500 grams
- Total water: 300 + 50 = 350 grams
- Hydration: 350 / 500 = 70 percent
Leave the starter out and the same dough looks like 67 percent.
Tips and common mistakes
Use the total flour. If a recipe mixes bread flour, whole wheat and rye, add them together. That sum is the 100 percent.
Count milk and eggs carefully. They are mostly water but not entirely, so a dough made with milk behaves a little drier than its percentage suggests. Enter them under “other” and judge the dough by feel.
Keep the formula with the recipe. Write the percentages at the top of the page. Next time you want one loaf instead of two, or a batch for a crowd, the math is already done.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate baker's percentage?
Divide the weight of the ingredient by the weight of the flour and multiply by 100. With 500 grams of flour and 10 grams of salt, the salt is 10 / 500 x 100 = 2 percent.
Why do baker's percentages add up to more than 100?
Because they are measured against the flour, not against the whole dough. Flour alone is 100 percent, so a dough with 70 percent water and 2 percent salt totals 172 percent.
What is hydration in bread baking?
Hydration is the baker's percentage of water: water weight divided by flour weight, times 100. A dough with 1,000 grams of flour and 650 grams of water is 65 percent hydration.
How do I scale a recipe with baker's percentages?
Pick the new flour weight and multiply it by each percentage. At 70 percent hydration and 2 percent salt, 800 grams of flour needs 560 grams of water and 16 grams of salt.
Do I count the flour in my sourdough starter?
Yes. A starter fed with equal weights of flour and water is half flour and half water. Add half its weight to the flour and half to the water before working out the percentages.