What Is Baker's Percentage?
Baker's percentage is the language professional bakers use to write formulas. Every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight, which is always 100%. It sounds abstract but it's the most practical tool in baking: it lets you scale any recipe to any size and compare recipes at a glance.
How it works
Flour is the anchor at 100%. If a formula is 70% water, 2% salt, and 1% yeast, then 500 g of flour needs 350 g water, 10 g salt, and 5 g yeast. To make a bigger batch, you change only the flour weight and every other ingredient recalculates in proportion.
Why bakers love it
Two recipes written in percentages are instantly comparable — you can see that one is a wetter 78% dough and another a firm 65% without any mental math. It also makes scaling foolproof, which is why bakeries run entirely on it.
Frequently asked questions
- What does 70% hydration mean?
- Water weighing 70% of the flour weight — 350 g water per 500 g flour.
- How do I scale a recipe with baker's percentage?
- Change the flour weight; every other ingredient is a fixed percentage of it, so they follow automatically.
- Is salt really only 2%?
- Around 1.8-2.2% of flour weight is typical for bread — small but essential.