Baker's Percentage Calculator
Bakers do not write recipes in cups or even in grams — they write them as percentages of the flour weight, which is why the numbers add up to well over a hundred and why scaling a recipe means changing exactly one figure. This turns those percentages into weights, works out the hydration and the dough yield, and divides every weight back by the flour to confirm it really is the percentage it claims.
What this generator does
Takes the flour weight as the baseline, applies each ingredient's percentage to it, and totals the dough. Hydration and dough yield follow, and every weight is divided back by the flour weight and compared with the percentage it came from.
How to use this tool
- Enter how much flour you are using.
- Set the hydration — water as a percentage of flour weight.
- Adjust the salt percentage if you want to.
- Read the weights, the total dough and the yield.
Understanding the controls
- Flour weight
- The baseline everything else is measured against. Change only this to scale the whole recipe, which is exactly why bakers work this way.
- Hydration
- Water as a percentage of flour weight. Around 65 gives a firm, easily handled dough; above 75 it becomes slack and needs different handling.
- Salt
- Usually about 2% of flour weight. Below 1.5% bread tastes noticeably flat, and above 2.5% it starts to slow the yeast.
Common use cases
- Scaling a bread recipe up or down without recalculating by hand
- Converting a formula written in baker's percentages into weights
- Comparing two recipes by hydration rather than by volume
- Working out how much dough a given flour weight will make
- Teaching baker's math with numbers that can be checked
How this generator works
Baker's percentage sets the flour at 100% and expresses every other ingredient as a percentage of it, which is why the figures sum to more than a hundred and why the method survives scaling untouched. Each weight is that percentage of the flour weight. Hydration is the water percentage directly, and the dough yield is the total weight over the flour weight. Before display every weight is divided back by the flour weight and compared with its stated percentage, and the parts are re-totalled against the dough weight.
Randomness and fairness
Nothing here is random. A flour weight and a set of percentages give exactly one set of weights.
For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.
Limitations and good to know
- Only the water is counted towards hydration, so a recipe with milk, eggs or butter needs their water content added by hand.
- A preferment or levain carries flour and water of its own, and folding that into the overall percentages is a further step this does not take.
- Weights are rounded to a tenth of a gram, which is finer than most domestic scales can read.
- This is the arithmetic of a formula, not a recipe — timing, temperature and technique matter at least as much.
Privacy and your data
The weights are worked out in your browser. The flour weight and percentages you enter are never transmitted, stored or included in analytics.
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