Baker’s percentage calculator for bread, pizza, roti and more
Bakers write formulas as percentages of the flour, not as cups or grams: flour is always 100 %, and every other ingredient is expressed relative to it. A dough with 1,000 g flour and 720 g water is “72 % hydration”; 20 g salt is 2 %. This baker’s percentage calculator turns those percentages into gram weights for any batch size, and converts a recipe you already weigh out into percentages so you can judge it at a glance and scale it without error.
You can scale by total flour, by total dough weight (handy when a tin or a proofing basket holds a known amount) or by a number of loaves, pizza bases, rotis or naans of a chosen weight. Tick Use a preferment / levain and the tool splits the levain, poolish or biga out of the formula: it tells you how much flour and water to build the preferment with, and how much remains for the final mix so the overall hydration stays exactly what you planned.
Presets cover sourdough, baguette, pizza, brioche, sandwich loaf, focaccia, chapati/roti and naan. Your own formulas can be saved in this browser and loaded later. Nothing is uploaded.
How to use the Baker’s Percentage Calculator
- Pick a Preset or type your own ingredients and percentages in the table. Flour is fixed at 100 %; add rows with Add ingredient.
- Choose how to scale: Flour (enter the flour weight), Dough (total weight) or Loaves (count × weight each). Every gram column updates instantly.
- Type directly into a Weight cell if you are working the other way — the percentage is recalculated from the flour weight.
- For sourdough or poolish breads, tick Use a preferment / levain, set its share of the flour and its hydration, and read the build and final-mix panels.
- Press Copy formula to paste the formula into notes, or name it and press Save to keep it in this browser.
Baker’s Percentage Calculator features
Percentages ↔ grams both ways
Edit a percentage and the grams follow; edit a weight and the percentage follows, relative to the flour row.
Three scaling bases
Flour weight, total dough weight or loaves × weight each — with the sum of percentages used to convert between them.
Preferment handling
Levain, poolish or biga at any hydration is subtracted from the final mix so the overall formula is unchanged.
Hydration read-out
Water, milk, yogurt, buttermilk, beer and juice rows count towards hydration; eggs, oil and butter do not.
Eight presets
Sourdough, baguette, pizza, brioche, sandwich loaf, focaccia, chapati/roti and naan — realistic starting points you can edit.
Save in your browser
Named formulas are stored locally and listed in the saved-formulas menu; nothing leaves your device.
The maths behind baker’s percentages
Each ingredient’s percentage is weight ÷ total flour weight × 100. To go the other way, weight = flour × percentage ÷ 100. Because flour is the base, the sum of all percentages is more than 100: a formula of 100 % flour, 72 % water, 2 % salt and 1 % yeast sums to 175 %, so 1,000 g flour gives 1,750 g dough, and a 1,750 g target dough needs 1,750 ÷ 1.75 = 1,000 g flour.
With a preferment, the flour and water inside it are part of the 100 % and the hydration, not extra. A 20 % liquid levain (100 % hydration) on 1,000 g flour weighs 200 g and contains 100 g flour and 100 g water, so the final mix uses 900 g flour and the remaining water.
| Dough | Typical hydration | Salt | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baguette | 65–72 % | 1.8–2 % | Often 30 % of the flour as a poolish |
| Sourdough country loaf | 72–82 % | 2 % | 15–25 % levain; higher hydration needs stronger flour |
| Neapolitan-style pizza | 58–65 % | 2.5–3 % | Little or no oil and sugar; long cold ferment |
| Brioche | 15–25 % milk + ~50 % eggs | 2 % | 40–60 % butter; eggs are not counted as hydration here |
| Chapati / roti (atta) | 60–70 % | 0.5–1 % | Soft dough, rest 20–30 min before rolling |
| Naan | 50–55 % + yogurt | 1.5 % | Yogurt adds tenderness and counts as liquid |
Why percentages beat cups
- Scaling is trivial: change the flour weight and everything follows — no fractions of a cup, no rounding.
- Formulas are comparable: 78 % hydration tells an experienced baker what the dough will feel like regardless of batch size.
- Errors are visible: 5 % salt or 150 % water jumps off the page in a way that “3 teaspoons” never does.
- Volume measurements for flour vary by 20 % or more depending on how the cup is filled; for scaling a cup-based recipe as written, use the recipe scaler, or weigh it once with the cooking converter and switch to percentages.
Baker’s Percentage Calculator FAQ
How do I calculate baker’s percentage for my own recipe?
Weigh each ingredient, enter the flour weight and type the other weights into the Weight column. The calculator divides each by the flour weight and shows the percentages, which you can then scale to any batch.
What hydration does the calculator report when I use milk or yogurt?
Hydration is the sum of water-like rows: water, milk, buttermilk, yogurt, curd, beer, juice, coffee and tea. Eggs, butter and oil contain moisture but are conventionally left out, so the figure matches how most bakers quote hydration.
How does the levain affect hydration?
It does not change the overall hydration — its flour and water are already inside the formula. The tool subtracts them from the final mix so that the dough on the bench ends up at the hydration you entered.
Can I scale by the number of pizzas or rotis?
Yes. Choose Loaves, enter the count and the dough weight each (for example 4 × 250 g pizza bases or 12 × 50 g rotis) and the flour and every ingredient weight are calculated from the sum of percentages.
Should the preferment be included in the percentages table?
No. Keep the table as the overall formula (flour 100 %, water, salt and so on) and describe the preferment separately with its share of the flour and its hydration. The build and final-mix panels then do the arithmetic.
Where are saved formulas stored?
In your browser’s local storage on this device. They are not uploaded and will not appear on another computer; use Copy formula to move one elsewhere.