Baker's Percentage Calculator
Turn a full recipe (flour, water, salt, yeast, fat and sugar) into baker's percentages, or scale a set of percentages to any flour weight.
Answer
65% hydration
As percentages
Next step
Worth knowing
- Baker's percentages always treat flour as 100%. Everything else is measured against the flour, which is why a recipe can be scaled to any size without the balance changing.
- Water as a percentage of flour is called hydration. It is the single number that tells you most about how a dough will handle.
- Percentages add up to more than 100%. That is normal and expected.
Source: Baker's percentage method, standard UK bread and pizza formulations · Reviewed 2026-09-10 · Guidance version 1.0.0
Reference and detail
Flour is always 100%
Every other ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight. That is what lets you scale a recipe from one loaf to twenty without the dough behaving differently.
Hydration is just the water percentage
When bakers talk about a 75% dough, they mean 75g of water for every 100g of flour. It is the single most useful number in a bread recipe.
It makes recipes comparable
Two recipes written in cups and spoons are almost impossible to compare. In percentages you can see at a glance which is wetter, saltier or richer.
Questions and answers
Questions about baker's percentages
Why do bakers work in percentages instead of weights?
Because it makes recipes comparable and scalable regardless of batch size. Every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight, which is always treated as 100%, so you can see at a glance how wet, salty or rich two very different recipes are, and scale either one to any flour weight without redoing the maths from scratch.
What does flour being '100%' actually mean?
It means every other ingredient's percentage is measured against the flour weight, not against the total dough weight. So 70% hydration means the water weighs 70% of the flour weight, not 70% of everything in the bowl.
Can I turn my own recipe into percentages?
Yes. Enter your recipe's weights above and choose 'convert to percentages' to see each ingredient expressed against your flour weight.
Can I scale a recipe written in percentages to the flour I have?
Yes. Enter the percentages and your flour weight, and the calculator gives you the weight of every ingredient for that amount of flour.
Guidance
Read the full guide
- Understanding Dough HydrationWhat a hydration percentage means, why sourdough is counted differently once a starter is involved, and how baker's percentage ties the whole formula together.