Baker's Percentage Calculator — Bread Dough Formula
Baker's percentage expresses every ingredient as a percentage of the flour weight, making recipes infinitely scalable. Enter your flour weight and ingredient percentages to get exact gram weights for the whole dough.
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Sum of all ingredient weights
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Water weight
500 × 68% ÷ 100 = 340 - 2
Salt weight
500 × 2% ÷ 100 = 10 - 3
Yeast weight
500 × 1% ÷ 100 = 5 - 4
Total dough weight
500 + 340 + 10 + 5 = 855Flour is always 100% in baker's percentages — all other weights are relative to it.
How does this calculator work?
Baker's percentage sets flour = 100% and expresses all other ingredients as a proportion of flour weight. Multiply flour grams by any ingredient% and divide by 100 for the exact gram weight. A 500 g batch at 68% water, 2% salt, and 1% yeast = 340 g water, 10 g salt, and 5 g yeast — 856 g of dough total.
Formula
How this is calculated
In baker's math, flour is always set to 100% regardless of how much you are making. Every other ingredient is expressed as a percentage of that flour weight, not of the total dough weight. Hydration (water) for a standard sandwich loaf is 60–70%; for a rustic sourdough 75–85%; for flatbreads or focaccia it can reach 100% or beyond. Salt is typically 1.8–2.2% — enough to enhance flavour and strengthen gluten without retarding fermentation too much. Instant dry yeast runs 0.5–1% and fresh yeast 1–3%.
The formula is simple: multiply the flour weight in grams by any ingredient percentage and divide by 100. A 500 g flour batch at 68% hydration needs 500 × 68 / 100 = 340 g of water. Scaling to 1 kg of flour? Just rerun with flour = 1000 g — all percentages stay the same.
The total baker's percentage (sum of all ingredient percentages including flour's 100%) is a useful shorthand: a recipe labelled '178%' means total dough weight is 1.78× the flour weight, which lets bakers quickly calculate yield.
Frequently asked questions
Flour is the structural backbone of bread — everything else is relative to it. Setting flour to 100% lets bakers instantly scale a recipe to any batch size while keeping all ratios constant. It also makes it easy to compare recipes: a 70% hydration dough will always be wetter than a 60% one, regardless of batch size.
Sandwich bread and basic white loaves work well at 60–70% hydration. Artisan sourdoughs and country loaves typically use 72–80%. Ciabatta and focaccia go 80–100% or higher. Higher hydration produces a more open crumb and chewier texture but requires more skill to shape; start lower and increase as your technique improves.
Weigh each ingredient in grams (a digital kitchen scale is essential for baking). Divide each ingredient weight by the flour weight and multiply by 100 to get its percentage. Once you have the percentages you can rescale to any flour amount using this calculator.
Also known as
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. (2026). Baker's Percentage Calculator — Bread Dough Formula [Online calculator]. TG we-Calculate. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/bakers-percentage-calculator
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. "Baker's Percentage Calculator — Bread Dough Formula." TG we-Calculate. 2026. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/bakers-percentage-calculator.
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team, "Baker's Percentage Calculator — Bread Dough Formula," TG we-Calculate, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://we-calculate.com/calculator/bakers-percentage-calculator
@misc{wecalculate_bakers_percentage_calculator, title = {Baker's Percentage Calculator — Bread Dough Formula}, author = {{TG we-Calculate Editorial Team}}, howpublished = {\url{https://we-calculate.com/calculator/bakers-percentage-calculator}}, year = {2026}, note = {TG we-Calculate} }
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