Sourdough Baker's Percent Calculator

Baker's Percentage Calculator FAQ

What is this?

This baker's percentage calculator is used to calculate the proportion of all of your primary dough ingredients as well as your final dough hydration. Also referred to as baker's math, knowing the percentages of each ingredient allows you to be more consistent with your bakes, compare different recipes, and experiment with higher hydration doughs.

When used in conjunction with the reverse hydration calculator you can easily scale recipes up and down like a pro. Leave the math to doughCALCS so you can get more time to bake!

How about an example?

Pick any recipe you're using. Let's use this No-Knead Sourdough loaf as a quick example. Looking at the recipe, you would input 600g for the flour, 397g water, 18g salt, 227g starter, 100% starter hydration (we'll assume 100% since that's the most common).

After calculating, you'll see that this recipe has a starter percent of ~37.8% and a final hydration percent of ~72% (see further below for why the final hydration is so different from the water % in this recipe).

Compare that with the Tartine Country Loaf where you'll see it has a starter percent of 20% and a much higher final hydration of ~77%.

There is no right or wrong way to make bread. But understanding the different percentages in recipes helps you notice the difference in various ingredients and their impact on the final output.

Why is the final hydration % different than the percent of water in the recipe?

These calculator's assume you're using a sourdough starter. A sourdough starter already has some water in it and that plays into the final hydration percent. Final hydration percent is calculated by totaling the weight of water in your dough and starter and dividing by the total weight of flour in your dough and starter.