Baker's Percentage Recipe Scaler
Baker's percentages describe a recipe relative to its flour: flour is always 100%, and every other ingredient is a percentage of that. 75% water means 750 g of water for every 1,000 g of flour.
Because the proportions stay fixed, baker's percentages make scaling effortless. Enter a recipe in grams or percentages, choose how many loaves or how much dough you want, and the scaler recalculates every ingredient.
Scaled recipe
| Ingredient | Scaled (g) | Baker's % |
|---|---|---|
| Total flour | — | — |
| Total dough | — | — |
The starter is scaled as its own ingredient. To count the flour and water inside it, use the hydration calculator.
Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
How to use it
- 1
Choose whether to enter your recipe in grams or in baker's percentages.
- 2
Type in each ingredient and tick the flour box for every flour (bread, whole-wheat, rye…). Add or remove rows as needed.
- 3
Pick how to scale: a number of loaves with a dough weight per loaf, a total dough weight, or a simple multiplier.
- 4
Optionally add 1–2% extra to cover dough that sticks to the bowl and bench.
- 5
Read the scaled grams and each ingredient's baker's percentage.
The math, explained
baker's % = ingredient weight ÷ total flour weight × 100. Total flour is the sum of every ingredient marked as flour, so 400 g of bread flour plus 100 g of whole-wheat flour is 500 g of flour, and 375 g of water is 75%.
To scale to a dough weight, add up all the percentages to get the formula's total percentage, then total flour = target dough weight ÷ (total % ÷ 100). Each ingredient is total flour × its % ÷ 100.
Example: 100% flour, 75% water, 20% starter and 2% salt add up to 197%. Two 900 g loaves means 1,800 g of dough, so total flour = 1,800 ÷ 1.97 ≈ 914 g, with about 685 g water, 183 g starter and 18 g salt.
Dough loss is added on top in every mode: target × (1 + loss % ÷ 100). In multiplier mode, every original gram amount is simply multiplied by the multiplier (and the loss, if you set one).
Frequently asked questions
What are baker's percentages?
A way of writing recipes where flour is always 100% and every other ingredient is a percentage of the flour's weight. The total adds up to more than 100%; a typical sourdough loaf is around 195–200%. It makes recipes easy to compare, adjust and scale.
How do I convert a recipe to baker's percentages?
Add up the weight of all the flours. Divide each ingredient's weight by that total and multiply by 100. For example, 500 g flour, 350 g water and 10 g salt becomes 100% flour, 70% water and 2% salt.
How do I scale a sourdough recipe without ruining it?
Scale every ingredient by the same factor, including the starter, and keep weighing in grams. Bulk fermentation times stay roughly the same because the proportions don't change, but larger loaves need longer in the oven.
Does the starter count as flour in baker's percentages?
In most home recipes the starter is listed as its own percentage of the flour, which is how this scaler treats it. Some professional formulas split the starter's flour and water into the totals instead. The hydration calculator shows you both views.
More sourdough calculators
- Sourdough Hydration Calculator Find your dough's true hydration with the starter's flour and water counted in, plus baker's percentages and a reverse mode for target hydration.
- Sourdough Starter Feeding Calculator Grams of starter, flour and water for any feeding ratio, plus an estimated time to peak at your kitchen temperature.
- Levain Build Calculator Build exactly the levain your recipe needs: starter, flour and water in grams from the levain weight or percentage, with a buffer.
- Bulk Fermentation Calculator Estimate how long bulk fermentation will take from your dough temperature and starter percentage, and how much rise to aim for.
Keep reading
- 15 Sourdough Discard Recipes (With Quantities) + Storage Rules
Pancakes, crackers, pizza, focaccia, waffles, banana bread and more: 15 sourdough discard recipes with exact quantities, plus how to store discard safely.
- Sourdough Hydration Explained: Baker's Percentages, 65–85%
What sourdough hydration means, how baker's percentages work, what changes from 65% to 85%, and how your starter's flour and water count, with worked examples.