Baker's Percentage Recipe Calculator
Turn a total flour weight and baker's percentages into exact water, salt and yeast weights — the professional way to write and scale a bread formula.
How it works
Each ingredient = flour × (its baker's %) ÷ 100 · Flour is always 100%
Baker's percentage expresses every ingredient as a percentage of the total flour weight, which is fixed at 100%. This makes a formula scale-independent: the same percentages produce a valid recipe whether you mix 500 g or 50 kg of flour, and it lets bakers compare doughs at a glance (a 65% dough is stiffer than an 80% one). Note the percentages sum to well over 100% — they are ratios to flour, not shares of the whole.
Worked example
For 1,000 g flour at 70% hydration, 2% salt and 1% yeast: water = 1,000 × 0.70 = 700 g, salt = 1,000 × 0.02 = 20 g, yeast = 1,000 × 0.01 = 10 g. Total dough = 1,000 + 700 + 20 + 10 = 1,730 g.
Frequently asked questions
Why can the percentages add up to more than 100%?
Because each is measured against flour, not against the finished dough. Flour is the 100% baseline; water at 70% means 70 g of water per 100 g of flour, so the totals naturally exceed 100%.
What hydration should I use?
Roughly 60–65% gives a firm, easy-to-shape dough (bagels, sandwich bread), 70–75% is a typical rustic loaf, and 80%+ is a slack, open-crumb dough that needs careful handling. Higher hydration means a more open crumb but stickier dough.
How do I scale a recipe to a target dough weight?
Add the percentages (e.g. 100 + 70 + 2 + 1 = 173%), divide your target dough weight by that total and multiply by 100 to get the flour weight, then apply each percentage to that flour figure.
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This calculator is for educational purposes. Double-check important results before acting on them.