Baker's Percentage Calculator Widget
The professional bread formula, three ways: turn a flour weight and baker's percentages into a weighed recipe, turn a recipe's weights back into percentages and hydration, or work out how much flour makes a given number of dough balls.
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<iframe src="https://a2z.tools/embed/w/bakers-percentage-calculator" title="Baker's Percentage Calculator by A2Z Tools" width="100%" height="720" style="border:0;width:100%" loading="lazy" allow="clipboard-write"></iframe>
A plain iframe. Works everywhere, including site builders that strip scripts. Adjust height if your content needs more room.
<div data-a2z-widget="bakers-percentage-calculator" data-height="720"></div> <script async src="https://a2z.tools/embed.js"></script>
Adds a small script (what it does) that sizes the widget to fit its content, loads it lazily and keeps it isolated from your page's CSS.
Works with
How it works
In baker's percentage the flour is always 100% and every other ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight, not of the whole dough. That is why the column adds up to more than 100. With 1,000 g of flour, 65% water, 2% salt and 1% yeast, the dough is 650 g of water, 20 g of salt and 10 g of yeast - 1,680 g in all, a total formula of 168%. Hydration is simply the water percentage. In reverse mode the widget divides each weight by the flour: King Arthur Baking's example of 50 lb of flour with 33 lb of water gives 66% hydration, 1 lb of salt is 2% and 0.6 lb of yeast is 1.2%. Dough-ball mode works backwards from the dough you need: four 250 g pizza balls are 1,000 g of dough, and dividing by 1.68 gives 595 g of flour. Two optional extra lines cover oil, sugar, milk or a preferment. Grams or ounces follow the metric or imperial switch.
Calculation method
- Ingredient weight = flour weight x ingredient % / 100
- Ingredient % = ingredient weight / flour weight x 100; hydration = water %
- Total formula % = 100 + sum of all other percentages
- Flour for dough balls = number x ball weight / (total formula % / 100)
Worked examples
Basic lean dough
Inputs: 1,000 g flour; 65% water; 2% salt; 1% yeast
Result: 650 g water; 20 g salt; 10 g yeast; 1,680 g dough
Total formula 168%.
Reverse from King Arthur's example
Inputs: 50 lb flour; 33 lb water; 1 lb salt; 0.6 lb yeast
Result: Hydration 66%; salt 2%; yeast 1.2%
33 / 50 x 100 = 66%.
Pizza night
Inputs: 4 balls of 250 g; 65/2/1%
Result: 595 g flour
1,000 g / 1.68.
Limitations
- Hydration counts only the water line; water inside milk, eggs or a starter is not added automatically.
- Weights are rounded for display; a precise kitchen scale reads to 1 g.
- Dough-ball mode does not add a loss allowance - build it into the ball weight.
Where publishers use it
- A sourdough blog that publishes every formula in percentages
- A pizzeria training manual for scaling dough to the day's covers
- A bakery-school module on formula writing
- A home-baking community's recipe converter
- A flour mill's website next to its bread-flour product pages
Questions
Why is flour always 100%?
Because everything else is measured against it. King Arthur Baking describes baker's percentage as each ingredient expressed as a percentage of the flour weight, with the flour weight always 100%. That makes formulas easy to scale and compare between bakeries.
What is hydration?
The water weight as a percentage of the flour weight. 65% hydration is a typical sandwich or pizza dough; many rustic and sourdough breads run 70-80%. Higher hydration gives a more open crumb but a stickier dough to handle.
Should milk or eggs count as water?
Strict hydration counts water only, which is what this widget reports. Milk is roughly 87% water and eggs about 75%, so some bakers add those shares to get an effective hydration. Enter milk or eggs as an extra line to keep them in the total dough.
How much extra dough should I make?
Some dough sticks to the bowl, bench and scraper. Many bakers add 2-3% to the total, so four 250 g balls are planned as about 1,025 g. Enter a slightly higher ball weight to build that in.
Does the widget handle a sourdough starter?
Enter the starter as an extra percentage. Strictly, the flour and water inside the starter belong in the totals as well; for precise formulas, add the starter's flour to the flour weight and its water to the water weight.
Sources
- Baker's Percentage - King Arthur Baking Company . Defines baker's percentage (flour = 100%, each ingredient as a percentage of flour weight), hydration as liquid on flour weight, with a 50 lb flour / 33 lb water = 66% worked example. Checked 2026-10-01.
Cite or recommend this tool
If you reference this tool in an article, course or documentation, these formats are ready to copy. They are optional - nothing is added to your site unless you paste it.
A2Z Tools Baker's Percentage Calculator https://a2z.tools/embed/bakers-percentage-calculator
<a href="https://a2z.tools/embed/bakers-percentage-calculator">A2Z Tools Baker's Percentage Calculator</a>
[A2Z Tools Baker's Percentage Calculator](https://a2z.tools/embed/bakers-percentage-calculator)
Baker's Percentage Calculator by A2Z Tools - https://a2z.tools/embed/bakers-percentage-calculator
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