How to use the baker's percentage calculator
Grams → % turns a recipe you already have into baker's percentages. Enter each ingredient, choose its type, and the calculator shows every ingredient as a percentage of the flour, plus the true hydration with your starter included.
% → Grams does the opposite: enter how much flour you want to use and the percentages from a formula, and you get grams to weigh out.
What is baker's percentage?
Baker's percentage (also called baker's math) writes every ingredient as a percentage of the total flour weight. Flour is always 100%. If a recipe uses 500 g flour and 375 g water, the water is 75%.
Because everything is relative to flour, a formula written in percentages works at any size. It's also the fastest way to compare two recipes: if one is 68% water and another is 80%, you know right away that the second will be much wetter.
Example: a classic country loaf
| Ingredient | Grams | Baker's % |
|---|---|---|
| Bread flour | 450 | 90% |
| Whole wheat flour | 50 | 10% |
| Water | 350 | 70% |
| Starter (100%) | 100 | 20% |
| Salt | 10 | 2% |
Counting the 50 g of flour and 50 g of water inside the starter, the true hydration is 400 ÷ 550 = 72.7%.
Simple vs true hydration
Simple hydration divides the water you add by the flour you add. True hydration also counts the flour and water inside your starter. True hydration is the better number for comparing recipes, especially ones that use a lot of starter or a stiff starter. This calculator shows both.
Want a recipe from scratch at a set hydration? The sourdough calculator does it in one step. To resize a recipe, use the recipe scaler.
Frequently asked questions
What is baker's percentage?
Every ingredient is written as a percentage of the total flour weight, which is always 100%. A dough with 1,000 g flour and 750 g water is 75% water. It lets you compare and scale recipes without doing new math.
Why don't baker's percentages add up to 100%?
Only the flour is 100%. Everything else is added on top, so a typical sourdough totals around 190–200% (100% flour + 75% water + 20% starter + 2% salt).
Should starter count as flour?
For true hydration, yes: the flour inside the starter counts as flour and its water counts as water. That's why a recipe with 500 g flour, 350 g water and 100 g starter is 70% by the simple method but 72.7% true hydration.
Do other liquids count as water?
Milk is about 87% water, eggs about 75%, and honey around 17%. For simplicity, many bakers count milk and eggs fully as liquid. Oil and butter are fats and are usually not included in hydration.