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Baker's Percentage
Baker's percentage is shorthand for dough ratios. Flour is the fixed baseline, and everything else is measured against it. That is what makes scaling clean and predictable.
- Flour is always 100%.
- Water, yeast, salt, and enrichments are percentages of the flour weight.
Best ForUnderstanding the one idea that makes scaling and comparing dough formulas easy.
FocusFlour as the baseline, total percentages over 100%, and ratio-based scaling.
Read This NextPair with hydration and the calculator guide to turn the concept into a working formula.
The Big "Aha": It Won't Add Up to 100%
This trips people up at first. In baker's math, 100% is just the flour, not the total dough.
So if you add 65% water + 2% salt + 1% yeast, you get 168% total. That is normal.
Think of the percentages as relative to flour, not a pie chart of the whole dough.
Example
For a dough with:
- 500g flour
- 325g water
- 10g salt
- 5g yeast
The baker's percentages are:
- Water: 325 ÷ 500 × 100 = 65%
- Salt: 10 ÷ 500 × 100 = 2%
- Yeast: 5 ÷ 500 × 100 = 1%
That same ratio still works if you scale flour up or down. The percentages stay fixed while the gram weights move.
Why Bakers Love It
- Scale fast: set the ratio, change the flour, and everything follows.
- Compare recipes: two doughs can be compared by percentage instead of batch size.
- Tune with intent: change hydration or salt by a point or two and you will feel it.