Baker's percentage calculator
Flour is 100%; everything else is measured against it. Enter your weights and read off the percentages — or lock the percentages and get the weights. The starter’s flour and water are always counted.
The summary line under the result shows your hydration, starter % and salt % — the baker's percentages for this dough.
Show the math
- Read hydration, starter % and salt % straight off the result.
- Lock a target hydration and dough weight to work backwards to grams.
Reading a recipe in baker’s percentages
Baker’s percentage is the shared language of bread. Every ingredient is written as a percentage of the total flour weight, and the flour itself is always 100%. Water at 70% means 70 g of water for every 100 g of flour. Salt at 2% means 2 g per 100 g of flour. Starter at 20% means 20 g of levain per 100 g of flour. Once you can read those four numbers, you can read almost any bread formula in the world.
From weights to percentages
Take a recipe with 500 g flour, 350 g water, 100 g starter and 10 g salt. Divide each by the flour: 350 ÷ 500 = 70% water, 100 ÷ 500 = 20% starter, 10 ÷ 500 = 2% salt. That is the recipe expressed in baker’s percentages — and now it scales to any size you like.
Why the starter matters here too
Most percentage calculators stop at the added water and flour. But that 100 g starter is itself 50 g flour and 50 g water, so the true totals are 550 g flour and 400 g water — a true hydration of 73%, not 70%. DoughMath folds the starter into the totals, so the percentages it reports are the ones your dough actually experiences.
Baker's percentage FAQ
How do you calculate baker’s percentage?
Divide each ingredient by the total flour weight and multiply by 100. Flour is always 100%. So 350 g water ÷ 500 g flour × 100 = 70% hydration; 10 g salt ÷ 500 g flour × 100 = 2% salt. Every ingredient is expressed relative to the flour.
What is the baker’s percentage for sourdough?
A typical sourdough sits around 100% flour, 70–78% water, 20% starter and 2% salt. But the honest number counts the flour and water inside the starter — DoughMath does that automatically, so your hydration and salt percentages are true, not flattering.
How do you calculate bread hydration percentage?
Hydration is total water ÷ total flour × 100 — and “total” includes the flour and water in your starter. A 500 g flour dough with 350 g water and a 100 g starter at 100% is really 550 g flour and 400 g water, so 73% hydration, not 70%.
What is the baker’s percentage scale?
It is not a fixed scale — it is a ratio system where flour is the 100% baseline and everything else is measured against it. That is what lets you scale a formula from one loaf to fifty without the recipe changing character: the percentages stay identical.