Baker’s Percentages: How to Use Them, Step by Step

Bakers write bread formulas in baker’s percentages: the flour is always 100%, and every other ingredient is a percent of the flour’s weight, not of the whole dough. The water’s percent is called the hydration.

For learning and kitchen practice. Cup weights are typical values, not exact. For doneness, use a food thermometer and safe internal temperatures, not cooking time alone.

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The steps

Weigh the flour in grams. It is 100%.
For each other ingredient: weight = flour × percent ÷ 100.
Add all the weights to get the total dough.
To go backward from a recipe: percent = ingredient ÷ flour × 100.
To make a set weight of dough, divide it by the total percent (as a decimal) to find the flour first.

A worked example

Make bread with 750 g of flour at 70% hydration, 2% salt and 1% yeast. How much of each, and how much dough is that?

Flour: 750 g, which is 100%.
Water: 750 × 70 ÷ 100 = 525 g.
Salt: 750 × 2 ÷ 100 = 15 g.
Yeast: 750 × 1 ÷ 100 = 7.5 g.
Total: 750 + 525 + 15 + 7.5 = 1,297.5 g, about 1,298 g (750 × 1.73).

525 g water, 15 g salt and 7.5 g yeast, for about 1,298 g of dough.

Why it works

Making the flour a fixed 100% means the formula never changes when the batch size does. Double the flour and every ingredient doubles with it, because each one is tied to the flour. It is a recipe’s scale factor, already built in.

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Common mistakes

Taking the percent of the whole dough. 70% hydration means 70% of the flour, not of the dough.
Expecting the percents to add to 100. They add to more (173% here), because the flour alone is 100%.
Measuring in cups. Baker’s percentages work by weight, so weigh everything in grams.
Counting only one flour. If a formula uses two flours, together they make the 100%.

Questions people ask

How much flour for 1,000 g of dough at 65% water, 2% salt and 1% yeast?

The percents add to 168%, so the flour is 1,000 ÷ 1.68 ≈ 595 g. Then the water is about 387 g, the salt about 12 g and the yeast about 6 g.

What is the hydration of 500 g flour and 350 g water?

350 ÷ 500 × 100 = 70%.

Why weigh instead of using cups?

A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from about 110 g to 150 g depending on how it is filled. Weighing makes the percents mean the same thing every time.

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