Work a formula in baker's percentages against the total of every flour in the dough, with hydration, salt, and dough weight derived and any preferment split into its flour and water.
Change the inputs that matter to your decision. Optional assumptions stay collapsed until you need them.
840 g of dough at 65.0% hydration and 2.00% salt, on 500 g of flour.
The 100% base is 500 g of flour.
| Bread flour | 500 g · 100% |
|---|---|
| Water | 325 g · 65% |
| Salt | 10.0 g · 2%1.67 tsp |
| Instant yeast | 5.00 g · 1%1.61 tsp |
In baker's math every flour in the dough sums to 100% and everything else is a percentage of that total. A preferment is split into the flour and water it carries, so the hydration shown is the dough's hydration rather than the added water alone.
Practical notes about the inputs, assumptions, and result.
A way of writing a formula where the total flour is always 100% and every other ingredient is a percentage of that flour weight — not of the whole dough. It is why percentages sum to well over 100%. The advantage is that the formula is size-independent: the same numbers describe one loaf or a hundred, and two formulas can be compared directly.
Because a levain is flour and water that is already in the dough. A recipe quoting "20% starter, 70% water" is not a 70% hydration dough — a 20% starter at 100% hydration adds 10% flour and 10% water, so the real figure is about 73%. Counting the starter as one opaque ingredient, which is the common mistake, describes a dough that does not exist. Here it is split and both halves land in the totals.
Around 60–65% for a sandwich loaf or a pizza dough that you want to shape easily, 70–75% for an open-crumb sourdough, and 80% and up for focaccia and ciabatta. Higher hydration gives a more open crumb and a harder dough to handle, and flour matters: a strong bread flour absorbs more water than a supermarket plain flour, so the same percentage feels different.
Between 1.8% and 2.2% of the flour weight for almost all bread. Below that the loaf tastes flat and the gluten is slack; much above it and fermentation slows noticeably. The result reports your salt percentage so you can see where a formula sits rather than working it out separately.
Because baker's math is against the total flour, whatever kind. A dough of 400 g bread flour and 100 g rye has a 500 g base, and leaving the rye out inflates every other percentage by 25%. Any name that reads as a flour, meal, or grain is counted, and the result states exactly what it summed.
Yes. Choose pieces, give the count and the weight you want each to finish at, and the flour is solved back out of the formula's own percentage total. Allow a little for what stays on your hands and in the bowl — bakers usually add 2 or 3% for that.
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