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You are here: Home / Bread baking tips / Baker’s percentage demystified

Baker’s percentage demystified

48 Comments Bread baking tips

“The Baker’s percentage expresses each ingredient in parts per hundred as a ratio of the ingredient’s mass to the total flour mass”

Bekijk hier de Nederlandse versie

You may ask yourself: As a home baker, do I really need this baker’s percentage stuff to make a good loaf of bread? The answer is no, you don’t. But, if you are fond of numbers and want to know what others are talking about do read on!

In a recipe based on baker’s percentage all ingredients are calculated in relation to the total amount of flour within the recipe. This means, to start with we always denominate the total amount of flour as 100%. This total amount includes all the flour used in a recipe so must also include different types of flour and the flour in a preferment if this is part of the recipe.


HELPFUL EXAMPLES


With this example you can perform a lot of helpful calculations, quickly calculating the right amounts for all ingredients. A typical straightforward recipe may look like this:

Ingredient Percentage
flour 100%
water 63%
salt 1.8%
dry yeast 1.4%
butter 4%
total dough 170.2%

Example 1 : You want to make 6 loaves of 750 g each


When you want to make 6 loaves of bread weighing 750 g each, you can easily calculate all ingredients. For 6 loaves you need 6 x 750 = 4500 g of dough. The first step is to calculate the amount which represent 1%. For this example recipe the total combined percentage figure for 4500 g is 170.2% (see above in table: all the percentages of all ingredients added up).

Now to get to 1% you need to divide 4500 by 170.2 = 26.44 g. So each 1% represents 26.44 g, and by multiplying all percentages by 26.44 g we get the following recipe;

Ingredient Percentage Total
flour 100% x 26.44 2644 g
water 63% x 26.44 1666 g
salt 1.8% x 26.44 48 g
dry yeast 1.4% x 26.44 37 g
butter 4% x 26.44 106 g
total dough 170.2% x 26.44 4500 g

Example 2 : Now you want to make 12 loaves of 250 g each

As with our first example we need to calculate the weight of the total dough, which is 12 x 250 g = 3000 g. With this we can again calculate 1% = 3000 / 170.2% = 17.62 g. This gives us the following recipe with a total dough batch of 2999 g which is close enough of course :

Ingredient Percentage Total
flour 100% x 17.62 1762 g
water 63% x 17.62 1110 g
salt 1.8% x 17.62 32 g
dry yeast 1.4% x 17.62 25 g
butter 4% x 17.62 70 g
total dough 170.2% x 17.62 2999 g

Example 3 ; You want to bake 4 loaves of 500 g

You have found a nice recipe in a bread book. However instead of using the amounts given in the recipe, you want to make 4 loaves of 500 g each.

Recipe from book you want to use

Ingredient Amount
wholewheat flour 50 g
flour 400 g
water 298 g
salt 8 g
dry yeast 6 g

First of all you need to calculate the the total amount of flour (50 + 400 = 450 g). With this number you can now calculate all the bakers percentages of the recipe. First take 1% of the total amount of flour which is 450 ÷ 100 = 4.5 g. Now you need to divide all the amounts of the recipe by 4.5 to calculate the baker’s percentages.

Recipe turned into baker’s percentages

Ingredient Amount Percentage
wholewheat flour 50 g 50 ÷ 4.5 = 11%
flour 400 g 400 ÷ 4.5 = 89%
water 298 g 298 ÷ 4.5 = 66%
salt 6 g 8 ÷ 4.5 = 1.77%
dry yeast 6 g 6 ÷ 4.5 = 1.33%
total 169.1%

With this table you scale the recipe to bake 4 loaves like we did in example 1 and 2. The total amount of dough needed is 4 * 500 g = 2000 g. The total percentage of this recipe is 169.1%, now take 1% = 2000 / 169.1 = 11.82 g.

Ingredient Percentage Amount
wholewheat flour 11% x 11.82 g 130 g
flour 89% x 11.82 g 1051 g
water 66% x 11.82 g 780 g
salt 1.77% x 11.82 g 21 g
dry yeast 1.33% x 11.82 g 16 g
total 169.1% x 11.82 g 1998 g

Using the WKB dough calculator

To a lot of recipes on our website we added our WKB dough calculator. With this calculator you can scale our recipes with just a few simple clicks. The WKB dough calculator also uses baking percentages behind the scenes to do the calculations. Give the calculator a try by first clicking on ‘Open WKB Dough Calculator’. Now you can change amounts, change the hydration of the dough, number of batches, the amount of flour etc. The calculator will help you to scale the basic recipe. Click on the button below and give it a try.

Ingredients for a bread
makes 1 loaves
500 g wheat (bread) flour
315 g water
9 g (sea) salt
7 g instant yeast
20 g butter

Check out some of our favorite bread recipes with added dough calculator:

– Pain Rustique – a hybrid version with sourdough preferment
– 80% hydration baguettes
– Baguette boules – a fun and delicious take on a baguette recipe yielding wonderful sandwiches
– Semolina and sesame loaf – a yeast based bread that can easily be adapted to give it your own twist
– Our version of a Tartine style loaf – probably the best tasting sourdough bread we ever made

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Comments

  1. Grampa says

    February 7, 2025 at 16:18

    I make bread. not that well, but i have been making it for years and have recently gone to weighing the water and flour for a 3:5 ratio. This morning ( i am making pizza for the game sunday ) i wanted 2/7ths of the risen dough for the pizza. i weighed 48 ounces of flour and 18 ounces of water and kneaded it and let it rise. When i went to split the first rise the entire dough weighed 50 ounces. How is that possible? (there is nothing wrong with my scale but i am realy old)

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      February 7, 2025 at 17:32

      Hello Grampa,
      Are you sure you did not weigh 30 ounces of flour. Because that would match with the 18 ounces of water and your 3:5 ratio. When adding up 18 plus 30 and a bit of yeast and salt…50 ounces!

      Hope this is the answer to your question. No matter what age, we all make mistakes when baking 🙂

      Reply
  2. Brodie says

    October 29, 2021 at 20:17

    To clarify: the formula extends beyond just bread and works for cakes and pastry as well. But a recipe may call for a certain amount of frosting or a particular amount of a pastry cream.
    I have found conversion tables and started to understand the formula enough to start converting all of my recipes into formulas but it would be nice to be able to do that with recipes that don’t contain flour as well

    Reply
  3. BRODIE says

    October 29, 2021 at 19:22

    What happens to the formula if there is no flour involved? eg. Frosting or custards

    Reply
  4. Suzanne says

    November 6, 2020 at 21:09

    Why not help all of us novice bread makers and get an app?
    I appreciate your column, but worry it will all be lost one day! Many thanks Suzanne

    Reply
    • Nir says

      December 20, 2020 at 10:01

      Per your request – a link to a baker’s percentage calculator 🙂
      appia.co.il/calcu…uage=en-us

      Reply
  5. Suzanne says

    November 6, 2020 at 21:05

    I bought 500 gm of diagnostic malt flour, with the aim to make a malt loaf! I’ve found I got it totally wrong! I use a 200lb bread machine, and don’t know how much of the malt powder to add, and whether I have to decrease the flour, or increase the water? and what about yeast? Do I do anything to that?
    I enjoyed your price on bread making, it’s only since the pandemic I’ve taken up making my own bread, but it seems like an everlasting journey of learning! Dose it get easier? Would appreciate your opinion!
    Many thanks Suzanne Hunt
    sjh-suzanne@hotmail.co.uk
    UK 07484815486

    Reply
  6. Harry Posthumus says

    August 3, 2020 at 16:19

    I do not see any amount of sugar /Shortening in your recipes

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      August 3, 2020 at 16:42

      Hello Harry,
      If you look at other recipes like this one:
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…-favorite/
      you will see all kinds of other ingredients like sugar, honey, oil, butter, egg and so on.

      Reply
  7. Joanna says

    June 10, 2020 at 10:49

    Hi, may i know how about the egg? Do you calculate in it or is it just an additional and will not affect anything? And if i want to increase the total hydration of the original recipe, should i adjust the total of flour, and butter and yeast too? If yes, may i know how to calculate it? Thank you.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      June 14, 2020 at 09:56

      Yes, egg is part of the calculation as you can also see in this recipe for example:
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…d-version/
      Egg contains water (the egg white is about 90% water) and fat (the yolk) so you can also look at it as adding extra liquid and fat to your mixture.
      Increasing hydration is mainly done by adding more liquid. You can easily do this in our dough calculator you see with the above recipe for example. You open the calculator and change the water % and see how much water you need to add and what the total hydration for the recipe is.

      Reply
  8. lawson baron says

    May 17, 2020 at 15:52

    The weight of flour varies depending on the recipe book. My old Fleishmann’s
    Book weighs flour at 150 gm/cup. Other books have no comparison ( much older books, before Canada adopted metric system.) The baker’s formula will be very useful to me in future.
    Lawson.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      May 19, 2020 at 16:35

      Thank you Lawson, we are happy we grew up baking with the metric system and scales, it makes consistency in baking so much easier.

      Reply
  9. Rajh says

    May 7, 2020 at 21:38

    I get really impressed

    Reply
  10. Jerry says

    September 2, 2019 at 20:10

    Thank you for doing that for me.
    I think I have it know. Is the yeast dry or using a stater yeast?
    This way now if I want to use less water that’s all I have to do is then used a calculator.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      September 6, 2019 at 21:18

      Instant yeast is a dry yeast Jerry.

      Reply
  11. Lilian says

    August 9, 2019 at 13:15

    Thank you for the information really learnt a lot. My question is how do I know the percentage amount of recipe if I am adding a nut , coconut e.t.c

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      August 11, 2019 at 20:07

      Hello Lilian,
      When looking at bakers percentage you look mainly at the ratio of flour, water and salt (butter and yeast). These need to balance and need to be worked out for the dough to work. The other ingredients that you mention, are added extra’s and not a substitute for part of the flour for example. So you can calculate what percentage they are compared to the amount of flour, but in general it will not have impact on the actual dough. For example, when you make raisin buns, you can put in 100, 200 or 400 grams of raisins but the actual amount of flour, water and salt used, stays the same, you will just have a more or less filled raisin bun.

      Reply
  12. Nancy Wong says

    April 10, 2019 at 22:18

    Ik wil graag volkoren spelt zuurdesem brood bakken, hoe is de verhouding tussen desemstarter en meel. Moet er altijd bloem erbij? Ivm zwangerschapsdiabetes moet ik zoveel mogelijk volkoren eten.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      April 16, 2019 at 08:54

      Hallo Nancy,
      Heb je een recept voor ogen? Onze ideale verhouding is ongeveer 25% voordeeg op het totaal, maar nooit meer dan 50% is het advies. Wij gebruiken altijd een combinatie van tarwebloem en meel, omdat het maken van een 100% volkorenbrood een hele uitdaging is, vooral met 100% spelt. Dat heeft te maken met de vezels en de (soort) gluten. Het ligt er ook aan wat je doel is en wat je lekker vindt. Een echt 100% volkoren(spelt)brood zal een zwaarder, compact brood opleveren, maar gesneden in dunne plakjes kan dat ook gewoon lekker zijn om te eten.
      Kijk eens naar ons recept en onze methode:
      www.weekendbakery.com/posts…esembrood/
      Misschien kun je het als basis gebruiken.
      Succes ermee en veel geluk!

      Reply
  13. Leslie Aguilera says

    April 3, 2019 at 23:10

    How would I find the ingredients weight in grams when they provide yield amount and total percentage

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      April 4, 2019 at 09:12

      Do you have the amounts for us that you are referring to?

      Reply
  14. Erin says

    November 6, 2018 at 21:58

    What’s the best way to convert American recipes in cups/teaspoons to metric if the recipe doesn’t have them?

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      November 11, 2018 at 13:54

      Hello Erin,
      We have a very handy page with baking conversion tools for you:
      www.weekendbakery.com/cooki…nversions/
      Simply choose an ingredient from the list, like all purpose flour, and put in the number of cups and you immediately see that one cup is 125 grams for instance. And vise versa of course.
      We also have a multi converter that quickly converts celsius to fahrenheit and instant yeast to fresh et cetera.
      Plus under this you will find a table/list to look up all kinds of much used conversions.
      Let us know if you are stuck with any ingredient.

      Hope this helps!

      Reply
  15. Magda says

    October 17, 2018 at 18:41

    Hi there, I love your website. I’ve learnt a lot from you, and so far I followed your recipes scrupulously and with great results!!! Thank you for all that. Now the time has come to try things on my own :O. And here is my question – if you use baker’s percentage with sourdough bread, do you add to the amount of water the water from the starter, and to the amount of flour the flour from the starter?
    Thanks, Magda

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      October 20, 2018 at 18:51

      Hello Magda,
      Thank you for the love 🙂
      And the answer is yes, officially the water and flour from your added starter are also taken into account, most starters are 100% hydration so halve of the weight goes with the flour and halve with the water. But the most important thing to take into account is to see and feel how your dough behaves, because every flour and its absorption is a bit different. So a recipe and percentages are a good starting point but nearly always adjustments need to be made when it comes to the added liquid. Looking at our own recipes, we only add a very small amount of culture to each loaf and only halve of this is water, so a very small amount looking at the total amount of water added. With each batch of flour and each batch we bake we also very much look at the dough and feel it when adding water and based on experience know when to stop adding.
      Hope it makes sense 🙂

      Greetings,
      Marieke & Ed

      Reply
  16. Yuva says

    October 17, 2018 at 11:47

    Hello,

    Very useful information! Learned a lot. But when I tried this recipe, the outer crust in my bread is very hard and crusty. Is there any tip to achieve softer crust ?

    Thanks, Yuva

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      October 20, 2018 at 18:22

      Hello Yuva,
      Yes, a lot of recipes make for a crusty bread and that is their intention. If you want a soft loaf you can achieve this among other things by using steam during the whole baking process, baking the bread on a slightly lower temperature, tempering the oven sooner and putting the bread in a bag while it is still a little bit warm. But if your aim is making a bread with a soft and thin crust you can also try making a loaf with the dough from this recipe: www.weekendbakery.com/posts…atic-malt/
      A longer fermentation, like with sourdough, will always result in a thicker crust. So choose the recipe based on what you want to achieve too.
      Good luck with it.

      Reply
  17. Albert Willems says

    August 13, 2018 at 21:21

    After hours of searching I have not been able to find a site, where the amount of flour indicates the final dough weight and the size of bread tin that is needed. The size of a bread tin can easily be found by filling it with water and see how many ML of water it holds, which is the volume in grams. A sheet of kitchen wrap inside the tin will stop the tin from leaking, while filling it with water. Seven decades ago my father, a professional European baker, already used percentages, but I never asked him, how the dough weight and the bread tin sizes were related.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      August 16, 2018 at 22:55

      Hello Albert,
      Thank you for adding your comment and sharing your method and information. The size of tin needed also depends on the type of loaf and its volume of course. For example a whole wheat loaf will be much more compact than a fluffy white milk bread, though both would have the same amount of flour. Bakers would know when making a white loaf of say the standard 800 grams weight after baking, what tin with what volume to use to get the right shape and height. So for instance a whole wheat loaf would need a 28 cm tin and a white loaf a 32 cm tin.

      Reply
  18. venus gargavite says

    April 4, 2018 at 01:56

    thanks for the info..

    Reply
  19. S. Pingel pingel says

    November 13, 2017 at 14:32

    Excellent tool

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      November 17, 2017 at 18:03

      Thank you mr. Pingel 🙂

      Reply
  20. Kati says

    January 8, 2017 at 17:28

    Best explanation ever. Easy to follow and understand. Thank you for this.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      January 11, 2017 at 17:59

      Thank you Kati!

      Reply
  21. Gabriela says

    December 8, 2016 at 16:39

    Wonderful tool ! THANK you. Merry Christmas.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      December 13, 2016 at 12:30

      Thank you Gabriela and Merry Christmas too!

      Reply
  22. omer seyfi salur says

    November 23, 2016 at 20:38

    I adored these examples and also learned a lot thank you very much

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      November 30, 2016 at 17:59

      Glad you found it useful mr. Salur!

      Reply
  23. Paul says

    February 18, 2016 at 21:38

    Sorry to bother, but how do you calculate the percentage using a starter?

    Reply
    • Paul says

      February 19, 2016 at 20:53

      Never mind, I think I figured it out. I was trying to triple the “Sourdough mini boules” recipe, and you don’t have your handy calculator on that recipe. but I went to one of your others and saw how it was done. You just use the flour and water content from the starter as % in the recipe, correct? Anyway, I LOVE your site and thank you for helping all of us beginners out here! Cheers!

      Reply
      • Weekend Bakers says

        February 20, 2016 at 09:11

        Hello Paul,
        Yes, that is correct. Although if you only want to make more of a given recipe you do not have to recalculate but just multiply the ingredients (by 3 in your case) and that is it!

        Happy boules baking and thank you for the LOVE!

        Marieke

        Reply
  24. luiz domaszak says

    January 14, 2016 at 12:07

    Good morning.

    Wonderful site with lot of information so useful, recipes, tips thanks everybody.

    Best regards.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      January 16, 2016 at 20:52

      Thank you Luiz for your kind comment.

      happy baking!
      Ed & Marieke

      Reply
  25. Barry Walker says

    November 25, 2015 at 07:31

    Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      November 29, 2015 at 17:21

      Happy to!

      Reply
  26. Joy Roxborough says

    November 22, 2015 at 15:55

    Hello Ed and Marieke,

    Thanks for this useful post about Bakers percentages. I’m a bit confused though. You see that example where . . . LOL. No worries, I just answered my own question. Let me cut a long story short and just say thanks for a great post. I make your pain naturel almost every week. Sometimes I make it in te evening and say I will have it for breakfast but I often end up eating the lot before bed!

    Reply
    • Weekend Bakers says

      November 27, 2015 at 21:42

      Hi Joy,

      We’re impressed! And thank you for your kind words.

      Happy baking and eating,

      Ed & Marieke

      Reply

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