Baker's Percentages Tutorial

JoeV

Dough Boy
Site Supporter
I was responding to a question on RecipeZaar.com about flour weights based on volumes, and ended up writing this tutorial on Baker's Percentages. So I saved it and thought I would share it with the bread bakers here. This might qualify for a sticky as a quick reference tool for new bakers.

Baker’s Percentages Revealed

Flour weights based on volumes are only approximations, and should not be taken as gospel. What the flour weight actually is, is the main ingredient in your bread formula. Formula? Yes, professional bakers make batches of dough based on a formula, and that formula is derived from some basic math called "Baker's Percentages." In a nutshell, all ingredients in a bread formula are a percentage of the flour weight (the flour weight being 100%), and through some quick calculations, you can determine EXACTLY how much of each ingredient is required to make a batch of dough. If, for example, you wanted to make 10 loaves of French bread weighing 1.5# each, you would back into the formula using nothing more than division and multiplication on a basic calculator. It sounds complicated, but once you learn how to do it, you can look at a recipe from someone else, and be able to determine if the dough will be lean or slack based on the % of water or other liquid in the formula. You will also know if it will rise quickly or slowly by the % of yeast in the formula, and whether it will have good flavor based on the % of salt. Here’s a simple formula for plain white bread or French bread:

Flour = 100%
Salt = 2%
Instant yeast = 1%
Water = 59%

Total ingredients are 100 + 2 +1 + 59 = 162%

So if you just had 2# (32 oz.) of flour to work with to make bread, you would do the following math:

Salt is total flour weight x 2% or .02
32 x .02 = .64 oz. of salt

Instant yeast is total flour weight x 1% or .01
32 x .01 = .32 oz. of Instant yeast

Water is total flour weight x 59% or .59
32 x .59 = 18.88 oz of water.

Add them all together and you get:
32 + .64 + .32 + 18.88 = 51.84 oz of dough, that would make two loaves weighing 25.92 oz. each, or 1# 9.92 oz. each.

Now let's say you wanted two loaves of bread weighing 1# 8oz. each, for a total of 3# of finished dough (48 oz. of dough). You would do the following math to determine how much flour you needed:

Total flour =(Total dough weight divided by total percentage) x 100
(48 oz. ÷ 162) = .2963 x 100 = 29.63 oz

Now that you have your flour weight, just follow the percentage listed above.

Flour is 29.63 oz.
Salt is 29.63 x .02 = .59 oz.
Instant yeast is 29.63 x .01 = .30 oz.
Water is 29.63 x .59 = 17.48 oz.

29.63 + .59 + .30 + 17.48 = 48 oz of dough.

This comes in handy when you want to make something like hamburger rolls . If you need to make 20 hamburger rolls and want them to be 2.75 oz. each, do the following:

20 x 2.75 = 55 oz. of dough
Then take (55 oz ÷ 162) x 100 = 33.95 oz of flour. Then just multiply the salt, yeast and water by their percentage, and you will get a repeatable recipe every time. The percentages may vary a bit based on how a particular baker want their dough, but if someone gave you just the percentages of the ingredients in their formula, you could calculate the flour and all the other ingredients just from determining how much finished dough you wanted to have.

For another tutorial on Baker’s Percentages, go to: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/03/22/bakers-percentage-1/
 

Guts

New member
Very good article, I have it copied to word for reference. One thing I have found, use bottled water the chlorine kills yeast. The flour is always 100% so say you have 448 grams and 300 grams of water, you take the 300 grams of water and divide it by the flour 448 grams will give you 0.669643% .... use the same way to get the % of your other ingredients. Once you have the percentages it is easy to up size or down size your recipe. have I got it right JoeV...
 

JoeV

Dough Boy
Site Supporter
Very good article, I have it copied to word for reference. One thing I have found, use bottled water the chlorine kills yeast. The flour is always 100% so say you have 448 grams and 300 grams of water, you take the 300 grams of water and divide it by the flour 448 grams will give you 0.669643% .... use the same way to get the % of your other ingredients. Once you have the percentages it is easy to up size or down size your recipe. have I got it right JoeV...

Have your water checked, because the chlorine level in tap water is not sufficient to kill yeast...I use ONLY tap water, and have never had a problem. HEAT of 125F+ kills yeast, which is why any reputable bread formula will recommend 110-115F liquid temps, and NEVER any higher. If you have a well that you chlorinate yourself, you may be adding too much chlorine, and should contact someone to test the water.

You left out one step in the math, and that is to to multiply 0.669643 by 100, the result of which is 66.9643% of the total flour weight.

.669643% (which is less than 1%) is actually .00669643, which is why you must multiply by 100 to express the answer in a percentage. If you multiplied 448 grams by .669643%, the result would be 3 grams. Do you see what I mean? Try it on your calculator and be sure to enter 448 x .669643 followed by the % key, and you'll see what I mean.
 

Elephant

Member
Remember physics class, where friction could be ignored to make the exam easier for students but in reality you cant calculate things without it?
Same thing here:

Flour ≠ Flour

This calculation applies only to one specific type of flour: All-Purpose Flour.
It doesnt matter what you are about to do to it, it behaves the same.

For everything else this "could" be used aswell but as we all know:
Different variety of ingredients but same recipe = different distribution of ingredients.

For example: You have a very nice Curry that includes sweet mango. But your mango is not that sweet, in fact, it is sour and lacks a bit of taste. So what are you gonna do? Well you add more mango to it. But now it is to thick. So you add more water, stock, cream or what ever you have to it. But now it lacks of seasoning. So you add more seasoning and in the end your recipe that was made to feed four person can feed six person.

Same thing with your calculation:
Some countries such as Germany, France or even Italy have so many types of flour.
Theres even many different types of grain aswell, which of course you can use on this calculation, but do not expect the same outcome. In fact your "result" turns out to be sh*t.

Some types of flour have a certain extraction rate, which is crucial for baking.
Because flour is not flour.
For example your type 550 which is your all-purpose flour can be used for pizza, why not. But type 00 is better, because it weighs less.

Some types extraction rates are heavier and therefore need more yeast.

So, to keep it short:
Before calculating your ingredients make sure to include the type of flour to your calculation.
Very important.

You can even apply the entire thing i wrote to literally everything.
*kisses*
 
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