What is Baker's Percentage?
Baker's percentage (also known as baker's math) is a method to express the amount of each ingredient in a bread or baked good recipe relative to the total weight of flour used. Flour is always set at 100%, and every other ingredient is expressed as a percentage of that flour weight.
Whether you're baking a sourdough loaf, a fluffy brioche, or crispy pizza dough, baker's percentages help you achieve consistent, reproducible results every time — regardless of batch size.
Baker's Percentage Formula
The formula for baker's percentage is straightforward:
Since flour is always the reference point, its percentage is always 100%. Other ingredients are calculated relative to flour — water at 67% means you use 67 grams of water for every 100 grams of flour.
Example: Classic Sourdough Bread
For a sourdough bread recipe with 1,000 g of flour:
| Ingredient | Baker's % | Weight (1,000 g flour) |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100% | 1,000 g |
| Water | 67% | 670 g |
| Starter | 20% | 200 g |
| Salt | 2% | 20 g |
This means that for every 5 parts of flour, you use 1 part starter. You can use any unit of weight (grams, ounces, kilograms, pounds) as long as all ingredients use the same unit.
Why Use Baker's Percentages?
- Scalability — Easily double or halve a recipe without recalculating every ingredient manually.
- Consistency — Achieve the same dough texture and hydration every time, regardless of batch size.
- Experimentation — Adjust one ingredient (e.g. increase hydration) while keeping others constant.
- Professional standard — Used by professional bakers and in culinary schools worldwide.
- Unit-independent — Works equally well with metric (g, kg) and American (oz, lbs) units.
Metric vs. American Units
Baker's percentage is a ratio, so the actual unit of weight does not matter — only that you use the same unit throughout the recipe:
- Metric: grams (g) or kilograms (kg) — preferred by most professional bakers globally.
- American: ounces (oz) or pounds (lbs) — common in US home baking recipes.
FAQs
Can baker's percentage exceed 100%?
Yes! Because percentages are relative to flour, not the total recipe weight, it is perfectly normal for water to exceed 100% in high-hydration breads (e.g., ciabatta at 80–100% hydration). The total of all ingredients including flour will always be greater than 100%.
What if my recipe uses multiple types of flour?
Add all flour types together for the total flour weight (100% reference). For example, if you use 800 g of bread flour and 200 g of whole wheat flour, your total flour is 1,000 g.
What is baker's percentage in bread?
In bread baking, baker's percentage is used to describe the hydration level of the dough and the ratio of all other ingredients. A typical white bread might have 60–65% water, while a sourdough might have 65–80%. Salt is usually around 1.8–2%, and yeast or starter varies by recipe.
How do I scale a recipe with baker's percentages?
Simply decide how much flour you want to use, then multiply each ingredient's baker's percentage by your flour weight. For example, with 500 g of flour and 67% hydration: Water = 500 × 0.67 = 335 g.