Baker's Percentage Worksheet
Write the formula in percentages once, then scale it to any batch. Flour is always 100%.
BFCBrilliance · bfcbrilliance.com/tools/bread-baker-percentage-calculator
The formula
- Bread
- Flour (100%)
- Hydration %
- Salt %
- Yeast %
- Starter %
- Starter hydration %
- TOTAL FLOUR
- WATER TO ADD
- TOTAL DOUGH
Scale it
| Ingredient | % | Grams | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
The arithmetic
- Flour
- always 100%
- Any ingredient
- its % x total flour
- Starter flour
- starter ÷ (1 + starter hydration)
- Starter water
- starter − its flour
- Total flour
- added flour + starter's flour
- Water to add
- target water − starter's water
- 100% hydration starter
- half flour, half water
- ⚠ Blank water
- starter exceeds the target — impossible
Bake log — what actually happened
| Date | Hydration % | Room temp | Bulk time | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Before you mix
- Everything weighed, nothing measured by volume
- Starter's flour counted in the flour total
- Starter's water subtracted from the water
- Salt calculated on TOTAL flour
- Salt kept away from direct contact with the yeast
- Water temperature chosen for the room, not out of habit
- Scale zeroed between ingredients
- Final dough weight noted so the next bake can be compared
The starter is half flour
At 100% hydration, 200 g of starter is 100 g of flour and 100 g of water. Both belong in the totals. Adding your full target water on top of a starter is the single most common way a dough ends up wetter than the recipe intended, and it gets blamed on the flour far more often than on the arithmetic.
Percentages travel, weights do not
Write your formula down in percentages and it works for one loaf or fifty. Write it in grams and you have to redo it every time the batch size changes. This is the entire reason bakeries use percentages, and it is worth adopting even for a single loaf at home.