Food & Cooking
Baker's Percentage
Every ingredient in a bread recipe expressed as a percent of flour weight. Flour is always 100%. Water 65-75%, salt ~2%, levain 15%.
View on brothh.comWhat it means
Baker's percentage is a scaling system used in bread baking where flour is always 100% and every other ingredient is expressed as a percent of flour weight. A 72% hydration dough means 720g water for every 1000g flour.
Standard ranges: salt 1.8-2.2%, instant yeast 0.8-1.2%, active dry yeast 1.5%, fresh yeast 3%, sugar 0-15% (enriched), fat 0-10% (enriched), levain 15-25% (sourdough).
The system lets bakers scale recipes cleanly, compare hydrations across recipes, and troubleshoot — a too-wet dough usually means hydration went above 80% for a given flour.
Examples
Country loaf 1000g flour
720g water (72%), 20g salt (2%), 200g levain (20%)
Ciabatta 500g flour
425g water (85%), 10g salt (2%), 5g yeast (1%)
Do
- Always weigh — volume is unreliable at scale.
- Start at 65% hydration when learning; push up as you get comfortable.
Don't
- Swap flour 1:1 between types by volume — different flours have very different densities.
Related terms
Calculators that use this
Dough Hydration
Baker percentage math for flour, water, salt, and levain — get the ratios right every bake.
Sourdough Starter Feeding
Compute flour, water, and ripe time for any starter feed ratio and target hydration.
Yeast Converter
Convert between active dry, instant, and fresh yeast — with baker’s percentage when you give flour weight.