Baker's percentage & sourdough calculator

What is a baker's percentage?

A baker's percentage expresses each ingredient as a share of the total flour weight, which is always 100%. A dough with 1,000 g flour, 750 g water and 20 g salt is 100% flour, 75% water and 2% salt. Because everything is relative to flour, you can compare recipes at a glance — 65% hydration is a firm sandwich dough, 80% is a slack focaccia — and scale to any size by multiplying one number.

The default recipe above is a country sourdough: 90% bread flour, 10% whole wheat flour, 75% water, 2% salt and 20% levain. For two 900 g loaves that is 1,017 g of flour in total.

How sourdough is counted

LoafCalc uses the total formula method from professional baking: every percentage refers to all the flour in the recipe, including the flour inside a levain, poolish or biga. Hydration therefore includes the starter's water. You can enter the levain either as its weight (20% of flour) or as prefermented flour (10% PFF at 100% hydration); the calculator shows both and takes the levain's flour and water out of the final dough for you.

Many simple calculators ignore the starter, so a recipe of 1,000 g flour, 700 g water and 200 g starter looks like 70% hydration when it is really (700 + 100) ÷ (1,000 + 100) = 72.7%. Read more in how to calculate sourdough hydration.

How to use the calculator

1. Enter the formula. Type each ingredient as a percentage of total flour. Flours add up to 100%; water is the total hydration including any levain.
2. Add a preferment. Choose a sourdough levain, poolish or biga and how much. Its flour and water are taken from the totals and listed separately.
3. Set the batch size. Scale by number of loaves or pizzas and their weight, by total dough weight or by total flour, with optional extra for waste.
4. Get water temperature. Enter your desired dough temperature, flour and room temperatures and mixing method to get the water temperature, with ice if needed.
5. Share or print. Copy a link that contains the whole recipe or print a one-page recipe card with grams, percentages and the levain build.

Bread and pizza formulas

• Sourdough breadA classic country loaf at 75% hydration with 10% whole wheat and 20% levain.
• BaguetteFrench baguettes with an overnight poolish, written as a total formula.
• FocacciaPillowy pan focaccia at 80% hydration with olive oil in the dough.
• Neapolitan pizzaClassic Neapolitan dough in the spirit of the AVPN rules: 00 flour, water, salt and a little fresh yeast.
• New York pizzaBig, foldable New York-style pies from a cold-fermented dough with bread flour, a little oil and sugar for browning in a home oven..
• BagelsChewy, shiny New York-style bagels from a stiff, low-hydration dough with malt syrup and an overnight cold retard..
• CiabattaOpen, glossy ciabatta built on a stiff biga.
• BriocheA rich, golden brioche with 50% eggs and 50% butter.
• Sandwich breadA soft, even-crumbed white sandwich loaf with a little butter, sugar and milk powder.
• ChallahA tender, braided challah enriched with eggs, oil and honey.

Cookies, cakes and other bakes

• Chocolate chip cookiesA classic chewy chocolate chip cookie written the way bakeries write it: every ingredient as a percentage of the flour.
• Butter cakeA tender yellow butter cake written as a balanced cake formula.
• Fudgy browniesBrownies are the extreme end of baker's math: there is more than twice as much sugar as flour, and more butter and eggs than flour too.
• Cinnamon rollsA soft, enriched cinnamon roll dough with milk, butter, sugar and egg, written in baker's percentages.
• Focaccia by pan sizeThe focaccia formula stays the same; the pan decides the batch.

More calculators

• Sourdough hydration calculatorTrue hydration counting the starter's flour and water
• Desired dough temperatureWater temperature and ice from the DDT formula
• Yeast converterFresh, instant, active dry and sourdough starter
• Starter feeding calculatorGrams for 1:1:1 to 1:10:10 feeds and time to peak
• Poolish calculatorPoolish flour, water and yeast by time
• Biga calculatorBiga and final-dough water for any hydration
• Pizza dough ball weightsBall weight by size, dough for 2–6 pizzas

Guides

• Baker's percentage explainedBaker's percentage is the shorthand bakers use to write, compare and scale bread formulas. Once you can read it, any recipe becomes a set of ratios you can resize, adjust and troubleshoot in seconds.
• How to calculate sourdough hydrationMany sourdough hydration figures are off by a few points because they forget the starter. Here is how to count it properly, convert between starter styles and handle milk, eggs and butter.
• Desired dough temperature (DDT)Water is the one ingredient whose temperature you can easily control, so it is how bakers steer dough temperature and, with it, fermentation time. Here is the formula, the friction factor and the math for adding ice.
• Yeast conversion guideHow much active dry yeast replaces fresh? How much starter replaces a packet? Here are the ratios LoafCalc uses, why other charts sometimes disagree and how to convert a whole recipe in either direction.
• How to scale a bread recipeScaling by weight with baker's percentages gets you exactly the dough you need, whether that is two loaves, a tray of bagels or four pizza balls. Here is the formula, with worked examples.
• Bread hydration chartTypical water percentages for common breads, from stiff bagel dough to almost pourable focaccia, plus how to adjust them for your flour and for milk, eggs and butter.
• How much to feed a sourdough starterFeeding amounts come down to two decisions: how much starter you need when you bake, and how many hours you want it to take to peak. Everything else is arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions