What is baker's percentage?

In baker's percentages, every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight, which is always 100%. A recipe with 1 kg flour and 700 g water is a 70% hydration dough. This makes scaling any recipe trivial — double the flour, double every other ingredient by the same percentage. The Fresh Loaf handbook covers this system in full.

What is a typical hydration for each type of bread?

Bagels sit at 50–57% (very stiff), sandwich loaves at 60–65% (soft and workable), baguettes at 65–70% (open crumb), country loaves at 70–78%, ciabatta at 75–85% (very slack). King Arthur Baking's hydration guide explains how water content affects crumb structure.

Why does flour weight always equal 100% in baker's math?

Flour is the structural foundation of all bread — everything else is proportional to it. Setting flour to 100% creates a stable reference point that works regardless of batch size. BBC Good Food's baker's percentage glossary explains it well for beginners.

How does salt percentage affect bread?

Most bread formulas use 1.8–2.2% salt (relative to flour). Below 1.5% and the bread tastes flat; above 2.5% and the crust may over-colour and the flavour becomes harsh. Salt also slows yeast activity — never put salt and yeast directly in contact before adding water. Puratos — the role of salt in baking.

Can I use the baker's percentage calculator for sourdough?

Yes. For sourdough, treat your starter's flour and water as part of the total. If you use 200 g of 100%-hydration starter, add 100 g to the flour total and 100 g to the water total before calculating. The Perfect Loaf has a clear walkthrough of sourdough percentages.

Baker's percentages, explained with one loaf

The one rule

Flour always equals 100%. Every other ingredient is a percentage of that weight. That is the whole system. Everything else — how to add a starter, how to adjust salt, how to scale — follows from that single rule.

A worked example

Simple white loaf

Ingredient	Weight	Baker's %
Bread flour	500 g	100%
Water	350 g	70%
Salt	10 g	2%
Instant yeast	3.5 g	0.7%

To scale to 800 g flour: multiply every ingredient by 1.6. Water becomes 560 g, salt 16 g, yeast 5.6 g. The percentages stay identical.

Common bread hydration ranges

Hydration determines how sticky and open-crumbed the dough will be. Here are typical ranges, sourced from baking references including King Arthur Baking and The Perfect Loaf:

Bagel 50–57%

Dense, firm crumb

Sandwich loaf 60–65%

Soft, tender crumb

Baguette 65–70%

Open crumb, crisp crust

Country loaf 70–78%

Chewy, irregular holes

Ciabatta 75–85%

Very open crumb, slack dough

Focaccia 75–90%

Light, oily, very wet

Using the calculator

The Baker's percentage tool on CookTheGuide takes your flour weight, hydration percentage, salt percentage and yeast percentage and gives you exact weights for each ingredient. Use it alongside this guide or open it mid-bake.

What to read next

Once you understand percentages, hydration becomes intuitive. Read Hydration and flour to learn how water content changes the crumb, and Proofing: how to tell it's ready for the next step in the process. For deeper reading, Ken Forkish's open-crumb approach and The Perfect Loaf are both excellent resources.

Sources