What is baker’s percentage?

A way of writing formulas where flour is fixed at 100% and every other ingredient is a percentage of the flour weight. It makes a recipe scale-free: the same ratios work for one loaf or a bakery batch.

How do I convert a baker’s percentage into grams?

Multiply the flour weight by the percentage and divide by 100. At 500 g of flour, 2% salt is 500 × 2 ÷ 100 = 10 g, and 68% water is 340 g.

How do I find the flour from a target dough weight?

Add all the percentages to get the dough yield — for example 100 + 75 + 20 + 2 = 197% — then divide the target by yield ÷ 100. A 1,500 g target needs 1,500 ÷ 1.97 ≈ 761 g of flour.

How does starter affect true hydration?

A 100%-hydration starter is half water, so it adds water the formula percentage does not show. The true-hydration row counts it: 75% plus a 20% levain works out to about 77.3% actual hydration.

Why can baker’s percentages add up to more than 100%?

Because only the flour is 100%; everything else stacks on top. The sum is the dough yield — 197% means 197 g of dough per 100 g of flour. Enriched doughs with butter, sugar, and eggs can exceed 250%.

What is the difference between baker’s percentage and the percentage of the batch?

Baker’s percentage divides by flour weight; batch percentage divides by total dough weight. Water at 75% of flour is only about 38% of the finished 197%-yield dough. Same water, two different denominators.

Baker’s Percentage Calculator | Online Calculators Free

Baker’s math, in one line

In a baker’s formula the flour is always 100%, and every other ingredient is expressed against it: water at 75%, starter at 20%, salt at 2%. To turn a percentage into grams, multiply flour weight by the percentage and divide by 100 — 1,000 g of flour at 75% hydration takes 750 g of water.

Both directions

Starting from flour answers “how much of everything?” Starting from a target dough weight runs the math in reverse: add the percentages (the dough yield), divide the target by yield ÷ 100, and you get the flour — then every ingredient follows. Want 1,970 g of the default dough? The yield is 197%, so flour = 1,970 ÷ 1.97 = 1,000 g.

True hydration

A 100%-hydration levain is half flour and half water, so it silently changes the dough’s moisture. The true-hydration row merges the levain’s flour and water with the added water and reports what the dough actually feels like: under 60% is stiff, 60–68% balanced, 68–78% artisan-open, and beyond that ciabatta-wet.

Worked example

A sourdough formula: flour 100%, water 75%, starter 20%, salt 2%.
Weigh 1,000 g flour; water = 1,000 × 75% = 750 g.
Starter 200 g, salt 20 g — total dough 1,970 g.
Dough yield 197%; true hydration (750 + 100) ÷ 1,100 = 77.3%.

How to use it

Choose whether you know your flour weight or your target dough weight.
Enter the base weight and the formula’s percentages.
Read each ingredient in grams from the rows.
Use the dough yield to rescale the same formula to any batch size.