About the Baker's Percentage Calculator
This baker’s percentage calculator converts a bread recipe into the formula format professional bakers use, where every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight. Flour is always 100%, so a dough with 1,000 g of flour and 700 g of water is 70% hydration. Enter your ingredients in grams and you get hydration, salt, yeast, starter and fat percentages plus the total dough weight.
It is designed for home bread bakers, sourdough enthusiasts and pizza makers who want to compare recipes, hit a target hydration or understand why one dough feels slacker than another. Sourdough starter is split into its own flour and water using the starter hydration you enter, so the result is the true overall hydration of the dough — the figure that actually predicts how it handles.
As a guide, sandwich loaves sit around 60–65% hydration, rustic and country loaves 70–75%, and ciabatta or focaccia 75–85%. Salt is usually 1.8–2.2% and instant yeast 0.5–1.5%. Whole-grain flours absorb more water, so they feel stiffer at the same percentage.
With the default inputs, the dough hydration is 70%. Change any value above to recalculate instantly.
How to use the baker's percentage calculator
- 1Weigh each ingredient in grams and enter flour and water.
- 2Add salt, yeast and any other ingredients.
- 3For sourdough, enter the starter weight and its hydration.
- 4Read the overall hydration and each ingredient’s baker’s percentage.
- 5Adjust water or flour to hit your target hydration and recalculate.
Formula and method
In baker’s math the total flour is the base (100%) and every other ingredient is a ratio to it, which makes recipes easy to compare and scale. Hydration is the total water divided by the total flour. Starter is split using its own hydration: a 100% starter is half flour and half water, so 100 g of starter adds 50 g of flour and 50 g of water.
Liquids such as milk are mostly water (about 87%), so enter them with the water for a close estimate, or under “other” if you want to exclude them from hydration. Total dough weight is the plain sum of every ingredient and is useful for dividing dough into equal portions.
- F
- Total flour, including flour inside the starter
- W
- Total water, including water inside the starter
- h
- Starter hydration (starter water ÷ starter flour)
Worked examples
Basic 70% hydration loaf
350 g water ÷ 500 g flour = 70% hydration. Salt is 10 ÷ 500 = 2% and yeast 5 ÷ 500 = 1%. The dough weighs 865 g in total.
Sourdough with 100 g of 100% starter
The 100 g starter holds 50 g flour and 50 g water, so total flour is 500 g and total water 375 g — 75% hydration, not the 72% you would get ignoring the starter. Salt is 1.8% and prefermented flour 10%.
Stiff 60% starter in a pizza dough
A 60% starter of 160 g is 100 g flour and 60 g water. Totals are 1,100 g flour and 680 g water, giving about 61.8% hydration and 2.27% salt.
Frequently asked questions
What is baker’s percentage?+
It expresses each ingredient as a percentage of the total flour weight, with flour fixed at 100%. A recipe with 1,000 g flour, 650 g water and 20 g salt is written as 100% flour, 65% water and 2% salt.
How do I calculate dough hydration?+
Divide the total water by the total flour and multiply by 100. Include the water and flour inside any sourdough starter or poolish, otherwise you will underestimate the hydration of the dough.
What hydration should my bread dough be?+
Sandwich bread is usually 60–65%, country and sourdough loaves 70–78%, and ciabatta or focaccia 75–85% or more. Higher hydration gives a more open crumb but a stickier dough to handle.
How much salt and yeast should bread have?+
Salt is typically 1.8–2.2% of the flour weight. Instant yeast is about 0.5–1.5% for straight doughs, and active dry yeast roughly 25% more than instant. Less yeast with a longer, cooler rise builds more flavor.
Do I count milk or eggs as water?+
Milk is about 87% water and whole eggs about 75%, so bakers often count them at those rates toward hydration. For a quick estimate, add milk to the water field; enter butter and sugar under other.