Baker's Percentage Calculator
Turn hydration, salt, and starter percentages into exact gram weights — with the flour and water inside your levain properly accounted for.
Your details
Total water as a percentage of total flour
Details
As a percentage of total flour
100% means equal flour and water
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Total dough
1,770 g
1,000 g total flour at 75% hydration
Includes your inputs, the full breakdown, and every row of the table.
Flour to weigh out
900 g
Excludes flour in the levain
Water to weigh out
650 g
Excludes water in the levain
Levain
200 g
Salt
20.0 g
- Total flour (100%)
- 1,000 g
- Total water
- 750 g
- Flour inside the levain
- 100 g
- Water inside the levain
- 100 g
- Finished dough weight
- 1,770 g
| Ingredient | Weight | Baker's % |
|---|---|---|
| Flour to add | 900 g | 90.0% |
| Water to add | 650 g | 65.0% |
| Starter / levain | 200 g | 20.0% |
| Salt | 20.0 g | 2.0% |
| Total dough | 1,770 g | 177.0% |
What this means
- Percentages are of total flour, which is the baker's convention — 1,000 g of flour is 100%, and everything else is expressed against it. This is why the percentages add up to more than 100.
- Your levain contributes 100 g of flour and 100 g of water. Both are already counted in the totals, so the flour and water you actually weigh out are reduced accordingly. Skipping this step is the single most common reason a dough comes out wetter than the recipe intended.
How the baker's percentage calculation works
Baker's percentage expresses every ingredient as a proportion of the flour, with flour itself fixed at 100%. A dough at 75% hydration with 2% salt contains 750 g of water and 20 g of salt for every kilogram of flour. Because the ratios stay constant, the same formula scales from one loaf to a hundred without any arithmetic beyond multiplication, which is why bakeries write recipes this way.
The part that trips people up is the levain. A sourdough starter is itself flour and water, and at 100% hydration it is half of each by weight. If a formula calls for 200 g of starter, that is 100 g of flour and 100 g of water that already exist in your dough. Adding the full flour and water figures on top of the starter gives you a dough that is both larger and wetter than the formula describes — usually noticeably slacker than expected.
This calculator treats the percentages as fractions of total flour including the flour inside the levain, then subtracts the levain's contribution from what you weigh out. That is the convention used by most modern bread books, and it keeps the stated hydration honest: 75% hydration really does mean 750 g of water per kilogram of flour, wherever that water came from.
Frequently asked questions
What does 75% hydration mean?
It means the dough contains 750 g of water for every 1,000 g of flour. It is not a percentage of the total dough — a 75% hydration dough is about 43% water by weight overall. Higher hydration gives a more open crumb and a slacker, stickier dough that is harder to shape.
How much salt should bread have?
Almost all bread sits between 1.8% and 2.2% of the flour weight, with 2% the usual default. Salt does more than season: it tightens the gluten network and slows fermentation. Leave it out and the dough ferments noticeably faster and the loaf tastes flat, which is why saltless breads are treated as a distinct style rather than a mistake.
Why do the percentages add up to more than 100?
Because flour is the reference point rather than the total. Flour is 100% by definition, so water at 75%, salt at 2%, and starter at 20% push the sum to 197%. That figure is useful: dividing your target dough weight by it gives the flour weight you need, which is exactly how the dough-weight and loaves modes here work.
Does starter hydration matter?
Yes, and it changes the water you add. A stiff 50% hydration levain is two thirds flour, while a 100% one is half. For 200 g of levain that is a difference of about 33 g of water — small on a large batch, meaningful on a single loaf. Keeping your starter at a consistent hydration makes formulas repeatable.
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Disclaimer. This calculator is provided for general information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, legal, medical, or engineering advice. Results are estimates based on the inputs you provide and the assumptions described above. Confirm any figure with a qualified professional before acting on it.