Understanding and working in baker’s percentages, also known as baker’s math, is a key skill for the home and professional baker alike.
If you’ve ever wanted to scale up or down a bread recipe, baker’s percentages and this page will help you. If you’ve ever wanted to understand all those percentages and prefermented flour labels in my posts and bread books, this post will help you do that, too. This introduction to baker’s percentages is a place to dig into that not-so-scary math behind baking formulas.
What Are Baker’s Percentages?
Baker’s percentages, also known as baker’s math or formula percentage, allow a baker to quickly scale up and down recipes, read formulas (recipes), and immediately understand the type of bread it represents and a way to add and remove ingredients without affecting the entire recipe.
Why Use Baker’s Percentages?
The cornerstone of using baker’s percentages is that we weigh each ingredient for accuracy (you are weighing, right?), and their weight is related to the total flour weight in a recipe. This means the water, salt, preferment, nuts—everything—is a percentage of the total flour weight.
And because we keep flour at the center of everything, it gives us a starting place from which to compare everything. Instead of ingredients as percentages with respect to everything else, they’re with respect to flour only. In this way, when we see a dough hydration of 80%, we instinctively know it will likely be a pretty wet dough[footnote]Ok, I know hydration is very respective of the flour you’re using. Still, generally, 80% hydration is considered moderately high by most standards.[/footnote].
With baker’s percentages, you can:
- quickly scale up and down a recipe
- assess a recipe immediately and determine what the end bread might be like when baked (further, it helps us spot gross errors at the formula-creation level)
- communicate with other bakers in a standard format to quickly share formulas
- add, remove, or change ingredient percentages without affecting the entire formula
First, let’s go through a simple calculation to set the stage. A nice stage. A gentle stage. A stage where math is our friend.
The First Thing To Know About Baker’s Percentages
Perhaps the most confusing part about baker’s percentages can be removed by understanding this single statement:
If you sum all the percentages for all the ingredients in a formula, it will be OVER 100%.
Typically, when dealing with percentages in other areas of life, all the items add up and neatly sum to 100%, or the percentages describe the portion of a whole (e.g., 50% of the pizza is cheese).
With baker’s percentages, however, percentages are used to serve as a reference point relative to the main ingredient: flour (which is always 100% of the recipe). This lets us quickly see how much of an ingredient is in the recipe relative to the flour.
Let’s look at how you can calculate the percentage of an ingredient now that we know flour is always pegged to 100%.
Calculating The Baker’s Percentage of a Single Ingredient
Here is how you calculate the baker’s percentage for any single ingredient in a bread formula:
And that’s it! If you want to know what the hydration of a recipe is (i.e., the baker’s percentage of the water), just take the total weight of the water, divide it by the total weight of the flour, and multiply it by 100. That’ll give you the hydration percentage. And you can do this with any ingredient in the recipe: mix-ins, butter, sugar, oil, etc.
Next, let’s work through an example.
My Spreadsheets Do All The Calculations For Me
While learning baker’s percentages and math is incredibly useful, I rely on my spreadsheets to do all the work. TPL Members have access to my baking spreadsheet suite, making creating and editing bread formulas much easier. In other words, the spreadsheets do all the heavy lifting.
A Baker’s Percentage Example
Now that we know how to calculate the baker’s percentage for a single ingredient, we apply this to all the ingredients in a recipe to fill out the total formula.
Let’s use my Simple Weekend Sourdough Bread as an example to work through. Below is a table you’ll typically see here called the Total Formula table; it shows the total weight for each ingredient and its corresponding baker’s percentage.
In the table below, you’ll see some typical percentages: the flour adds up to 100% (high protein bread flour at 80% and whole wheat flour at 20%), there’s water (usually 60% – 100%), some measure of salt (typically 1.8% – 2.3%), and some preferment percentage. For weights, I don’t often include sub-gram weights (I round everything up) since most home bakers do not have scales that measure to this precision, and it’s not necessary. I included those here, though, so the numbers work out precisely.
Total Formula
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 805.8g | High protein bread flour, malted | 80.00% |
| 201.5g | Whole wheat flour | 20.00% |
| 765.5g | Water | 76.00% |
| 19.1g | Salt | 1.90% |
| 8.1g | Sourdough starter | 0.80% |
A few important things to note:
- if you add all the flour percentages, you’ll get 100% (80% + 20%)—and this is always true with baker’s percentages: the total flour always adds up to 100%
- if you add all the percentages, you’ll get more than 100%[footnote]This is because all the ingredients are with respect to the flour weight—a single ingredient—rather than with respect to the weight of all the ingredients.[/footnote]
In addition to the total formula we also sometimes have a preferment such as a levain. Let’s look at that table.
Levain (Preferment)
Many bakes here rely on a dedicated preferment, or what’s typically called a levain (leaven) when working with sourdough. A levain is an off-shoot of your sourdough starter, and the difference is clear: the sourdough starter is the ongoing culture maintained indefinitely, whereas a levain ceases to exist once it’s mixed in with your dough (and eventually is baked in the oven).
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 40.3g | High protein bread flour, malted | 50% |
| 40.3g | Whole wheat flour | 50% |
| 80.6g | Water | 100% |
| 8.1g | Mature sourdough starter | 10% |
Just like the Total Formula table above, each ingredient is listed with its corresponding weight and baker’s percentage. In this case, the baker’s percentage of each ingredient is derived from the total flour in the preferment, 80.6g. For example, for the hydration (and baker’s percentage) of this levain, we have:
If you need to calculate how to make a specific sourdough starter or levain for a recipe, use my handy starter and levain calculator to do all this math for you!
How to Scale Up or Down a Sourdough Bread Recipe
Another handy reason to get comfortable with baker’s percentages is it becomes extremely easy to scale a recipe up or down (adjust the yield). I learned this method from Jeffrey Hamelman in his Professional Baker’s course (and this is also in his highly recommended book, BREAD). Note that this method works for any unit of weight in the formula: pounds, grams, or kilograms.
Steps to scale a formula:
- Sum all the percentages in the original formula
- Divide new desired total yield (the total weight you want) by the sum of percentages
- Round up the result and multiply it by each ingredient’s percentage to get the new weight of that ingredient
That’s it! Let’s work through an example. My Simple Weekday Sourdough recipe makes two 900g loaves, a total yield of 1,800g. Let’s say we wanted to make three loaves for a total yield of 2,700g.
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 805.8g | High protein bread flour, malted | 80.00% |
| 201.5g | Whole wheat flour | 20.00% |
| 765.5g | Water | 76.00% |
| 19.1g | Salt | 1.90% |
| 8.1g | Sourdough starter | 0.80% |
1. Sum all the percentages in the formula
2. Divide the new desired total yield by the sum of percentages
3. Round up the result and multiply it by percentages
| New Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 15.11 x 80 = 1208.8g | High protein bread flour, malted | 80.00% |
| 15.11 x 20 = 302.2g | Whole wheat flour | 20.00% |
| 15.11 x 76 = 1148.4g | Water | 76.00% |
| 15.11 x 1.9 = 28.7g | Salt | 1.90% |
| 15.11 x 0.8 = 12.1g | Sourdough starter | 0.80% |
There you have it, my Simple Weekday Sourdough recipe scaled up to make three 900g loaves for a total yield of 2,700g. Notice it adds up to a bit more than 2,700g. That’s because we rounded up the formula conversion factor—as Jeffrey says, it’s better to have a little more dough than not enough.
Also, notice the percentages of each ingredient remain the same. We’re scaling everything up proportionally to the new desired yield—thank you, baker’s percentages!
How To Bake Only a Single Loaf of Bread (Even if The Recipe Makes Two)
A bread formula (recipe) for a loaf of bread can be doubled to make four loaves or halved to only make a single loaf. To make only a single loaf, halve all the ingredients in the recipe, even the levain.
Let’s look at an example and continue with my Simple Weekday Sourdough and halve the recipe to make a single 900-gram loaf. All you do is take every ingredient and divide the weight of that ingredient by 2—including the levain build. The percentages will all stay the same, but the weights will be cut in half. So the total formula table will now be:
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 402.9g | High protein bread flour, malted | 80.00% |
| 100.7g | Whole wheat flour | 20.00% |
| 382.8g | Water | 76.00% |
| 9.6g | Salt | 1.90% |
| 4.0g | Sourdough starter | 0.80% |
To double a recipe, do the reverse: take the weight of each ingredient and multiply it by 2. Again, the percentages will remain the same but the total yield will now be 3,600g.
How to Modify a Bread Formula
Next, let’s say we wanted to add some walnuts to the Simple Weekday recipe. Where would we begin? We might instinctively say 15% would be a good amount: not too much, but just enough to get the flavor across[footnote]Your feeling for these percentages will develop with your ever-increased baking experience.[/footnote]. And the beautiful thing about baker’s percentages is we can add the 15% walnuts to the recipe, and all the other ingredient percentages will remain the same. If we kept our final yield at 1,800g, their weights would decrease, but their percentages will stay the same.
And this is important: because we’re keeping the percentages the same, their relative effect on the dough will remain the same.
Now let’s look at the result. This is the ingredient list before:
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 805.8g | High protein bread flour, malted | 80.00% |
| 201.5g | Whole wheat flour | 20.00% |
| 765.5g | Water | 76.00% |
| 19.1g | Salt | 1.90% |
| 8.1g | Sourdough starter | 0.80% |
| – | – | – |
And this is the ingredient list after adding in the walnuts (last row):
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 743.4g | High protein bread flour, malted | 80.00% |
| 185.9g | Whole wheat flour | 20.00% |
| 706.2g | Water | 76.00% |
| 17.7g | Salt | 1.90% |
| 7.4g | Sourdough starter | 0.80% |
| 139.4 | Walnuts, shelled and toasted | 15% |
After adding 15% walnuts to the formula at right, the weights of all the other ingredients went down proportionally, but their percentages remained the same. This means the ingredients’ weights went down by the same amount across the board, giving “room” to add the walnuts to the recipe and still maintain a yield of 1,800g.
Baker’s percentages let us focus on a single ingredient and not worry about how it affects others in the formula.
Imagine for a minute what would happen if we added some walnuts to the recipe but didn’t have baker’s percentages. We’d have to blindly guess their weight and add the walnuts, this would mean our total yield would increase and we’d have an increased dough weight in the end — perhaps our dough wouldn’t fit in our desired proofing baskets or we wouldn’t be able to fit it in our oven.
With baker’s percentages, we can add any percentage of walnuts we desire, and the ratio of other ingredients will remain constant. This lets us focus on just the ingredient we’re increasing (or decreasing) and let the rest of the ingredients still play their role.
Use Spreadsheets To Do All The Work
Understanding baker’s percentages and math is highly valuable, but I depend on my spreadsheets to handle the calculations. Join the baking community here—The Baker’s Corner—and access my baking spreadsheets, which simplify creating and adjusting bread formulas. Essentially, the spreadsheets take care of the hard work and let you focus on baking!
How To Calculate The Prefermented Flour Percentage
Another common term is the prefermented flour (PFF) percentage. This is the percentage of flour that’s fermented ahead of time before the main dough is mixed. This percentage can vary widely depending on the recipe (and whether you’re using only sourdough, instant yeast, a mixture), all the way down to 1%, and up to 50% — and even outside those extents.
Continuing with my Simple Weekday Sourdough example from above, that recipe has a prefermented flour percentage of 8.00% (listed in the Vitals table). This means that 8% of the total flour in the recipe is in the preferment (levain); let’s see how:
Over time, this percentage will begin to convey something instinctively to you, much like the hydration percentage. You’ll see 5% or 10% or 25% and think, ok, that’s a recipe’s low, medium, or high PFF percentage. Based on this intuitive assessment, you’ll need to pay attention and make a larger sourdough starter to build the levain (if high PFF), or perhaps start with the assumption that the dough will move very slowly for a long fermentation time (if low PFF).
Why Don’t You Include the Sourdough Starter In The Calculations?
This is an important point and something I’ve struggled with here at The Perfect Loaf (and in my baking in general) for years: should I include the sourdough starter flour and water in my overall calculations? For a formula to be wholly correct and account for all flour and water, the flour and water in the starter should be included. However, I typically do not include them for clarity and ease of use. Instead, I treat the starter as a single, cohesive unit.
I see this as a tradeoff between complete correctness and clarity. For example, if I included my starter in my formulas here, you’d always see rye flour as an ingredient (because it’s in a tiny percentage of my sourdough starter feeds). Including that bit of flour would be the correct thing, but it means strange percentages for all the other ingredients, which will lead to questions and confusion.
In the end—and maybe just for now!—I’ve settled on not including the starter flour and water in my calculations. This is because, in many of my formulas, my starter is included in such a small percentage that the impact of that flour and water on the total formula is minimal.
If you’re a TPL Member, you’ll notice in my baking spreadsheets that I offer the option to include your sourdough starter in the calculations for a dough formula if you wish to be 100% correct.
Explaining The Perfect Loaf Bread Tables and Charts
I know there are many tables on this website, but I think it is the most concise and clear way to convey a bread formula. Here at The Perfect Loaf, I like to split up a bread formula into four tables: Vitals, Total Formula, Levain Build, and Dough Mix.
The Vitals table (see right) is a roll-up of all the important aspects of a recipe:
- the total dough weight (how much the recipe makes)
- the prefermented flour percentage (the amount of preferment in the recipe with respect to the total flour in the recipe, more on this below)
- the hydration percentage (the amount of water in the recipe with respect to the total flour in the recipe)
- the yield (how many loaves, buns, rolls, etc., the recipe makes).
Simple Weekday Sourdough Vitals
| Total Dough Weight | 1,800 grams |
| Pre-fermented Flour | 8.00% |
| Hydration | 76.00% |
| Yield | 2 x 900g loaves |
The Total Formula table (see earlier in this post) is a snapshot of the entire formula, taking the levain into account: the total flour required, the total liquid, total fats, total sugars, and so on. In addition, the TF table also shows the baker’s percentages for everything so you can get a sense of the recipe outright (as I discussed at the beginning of this post).
The Levain Build table (see earlier in this post) is what you need to mix to make the levain—the off-shoot of your sourdough starter (see my post here on the differences between a sourdough starter and levain) for a single bake—for the recipe. The levain is usually some percentage of sourdough starter, some flour, and some water that’s made some number of hours before the rest of the recipe begins.
Finally, the Dough Mix table is what you need when you get to your counter and start combining ingredients. This table doesn’t have baker’s percentages because, at this point, you just need the weights of everything to know what to add to your mixing bowl.
Why Are the Ingredient Weights Here Rarely Round Numbers?
You might have already figured out the answer to this by now, but it’s worth stating: almost every one of the recipes you see here will have strange ingredient weights that aren’t usually round numbers. For example, in the Simple Weekend recipe used above the high protein bread flour is 805.8g, not 800g. Why?
When making a formula, I work on the overall baker’s percentages. So, I might say to myself, “I want this recipe to have 80% bread flour, 20% whole wheat flour, 76% water, …” Forming an image of the end loaf in my mind through numbers. And this goes back to that instinctual feel for percentages and how they will eventually translate into bread dough.
In essence, I know for me a 76% hydration dough is low to moderate hydration, and it’s also a manageable dough for many. Finally, when I use those percentages and set the total dough yield to be 1,800g (to make two beautiful boules), the math spits out the actual weights I need for each ingredient to satisfy the percentage concerning the total yield. And because I’m focusing on working in percentages (usually round), the actual weights can be whatever the math says they should be—and generally not round.
What’s Next?
And there you have it, my (hopefully clear and not too scary) introduction to baker’s percentages. If things are still unclear, or I’ve missed something here, please comment below, and I’ll get back to you with an explanation. I’d also love to hear if you have any tricks or suggestions on how you work in baker’s percentages (besides just using a spreadsheet!)—there’s always more to learn and, dare I say, more fun!
If you’re looking for more technical aspects of baking, check out my post on dough temperature and its importance in baking.
Happy baking!
135 Comments
Hi Maurizio,
This has been the clearest explanation of this subject ive come across, thanks!
I was doing fine until I got to the part where you talk about adding an extra ingredient to the basic recipe, in this case the 15% of walnuts. How did you come up with the changes to the base recipe in order to add the walnuts? I’ve tried decreasing the weight of flour by 15% and go from there but it doesn’t get me to your numbers. Id be so grateful if you can clarify this for me. Thanks!
From what I understand here, you don’t want to just decrease the flour by 15%. Instead, what he’s doing is recalculating the weights for every ingredient while maintaining a constant final dough weight of 1800 g.To do this, I think we need to use the conversion factor discussed in the previous section, where the 15% for the walnuts now gets added in to the total percentage in the formula:
80+20+76+1.9+0.8+15 = 193.7%
Then we take the desired yield and divide by the sum of percentages:
1800 g/193.7% = 9.3 g/%
That means that each percentage point in the formula means 9.3 g of the corresponding ingredient. To get the weights in the table, we multiply the percentage by the conversion factor:
80% × 9.3 g/% = 744 g
20% × 9.3 g/% = 186 g
… and so on. (My numbers don’t match exactly due to rounding.)
I hope that helps!
Thank you, Jaselyn!
Is there a difference in weight and volume of whole wheat vs flour? I often sub out some of the white flours for fresh milled whole wheat and have noticed that 1/4 c of whole wheat weighs more than 1/4 c of white flour. Seemed like paying attention to how much liquid is needed helps me adjust the texture.
I always measure by weight for this exact reason, Marcy!
Thanks for explaining this!
If you were to make a smaller bread. Lets say normally you bake a 1000g bread for 20/10/23 min (500/450/450F) in a dutch oven, but now you want to bake a 750g bread, how do you adjust the time in the oven?
I’d still do the 20m with steam, then reduce the second half as necessary. You need to keep an eye on it and test that first bake!
Thank you for the detailed explanation! In experimenting with enrichments like honey and olive oil, would those liquids need to be calculated together with water in figuring the hydration percentage?
You’re welcome, Sarah! So I don’t typically include other liquids when reporting the “hydration” percentage. Yes, they technically do have water content in them, but it’s so hard to measure!
Hello Maurizio, thanks the explanation above. Very helpful indeed.
I have been baking sourdough bread for 2 years now, and still learning)))) I sometimes come across the scenario when my dough is behaving great, its usually 75-76% hydration, after bulk fermentation i shape it and after resting some time it goes to fridge for cold fermentation for the night. What i notice is, before i go to bed the dough is already doubled in size in fridge. in the morning i turn it into the baking paper and see what i dont want to see: it starts changing its shape, going down in heigh…in this case the result it not same after i bake it. the consistency is still fine, the flavour is good, but the looks are not the same. Where is the mistake? Thanks
You’re welcome, Nika! It sounds to me like your dough is over proofing on you in the fridge. Reduce the amount of bulk fermentation time it it out on the counter before you put it in the fridge.
hello Maurizio, first of all thank you so much for all the detailed explanation. It is such a great help for sourdough newbie like me. I’m a bit confused on the levain percentage from the total flour in the recipe.
I’m aiming for a less acidic bread and I read some comments below where you said reducing the levain percentage of the total recipe will help reduce the sourness aside from using a not excessively ripe starter.
But I saw in the other comments also you mentioned that levain with higher seed will be faster to ripens and result in less bacterial activity and I assume less sour end product. I then thought bread with higher levain percentage means higher seed will need less fermentation time and resulted in less sour bread.
Maybe I got confused and understand it wrong, would you please help me clarify this? Thank you so much!
If you’re looking to reduce sourness, you can: reduce whole grains, keep the dough cooler, reduce total fermentation time (which would typically mean using more starter in the dough, within reason). All these will help you get there!
Curious how you determined 900g to be the perfect boule size. I will likely use that benchmark for my next loaf. Using a different recipe/different site, my total loaf weight was 650 (20% whole wheat, 80% AP, 20% levain, 2% salt). It seemed way too small for my 5.5 Qt / 10.5” Dutch oven and the dough spread a lot which may have contributed to a smaller (height wise) boule than I was expecting.
That was found simply through trial and error over the years. Even though I almost always bake at 900g (which conveniently fits my baskets nicely), a 600, 700, or 800g loaf is also fantastic!
The next time you update this web page could you have the developer address the current inability to print it out in a manner you can actually read.
There is no developer, just me 🙂 This page doesn’t have a print function, you’re correct. I’ll look at trying to get this in there! Just about all my other recipes do, though. Working on it!
I’ve read and re-read your article above, and can’t find the answer to my questions. I need to know if it really matters how much flour and water I add to my starter to make my levain, IF, without measuring but just eyeballing it, I add water and flour, my levain always doubles, is very bubbly, and floats? And, will measuring flour and water make a better loaf of bread in any way? Will it help the loaf rise better, have an ear, help the crust in any way? Thanks!
I like to keep things measured there with my starter, but it’s not 100% mandatory. I also do not take the water and flour that’s in my starter into account when doing calculations here at The Perfect Loaf (as I explain above). Why? Because typically my starter is a very small component to each bake, and it just makes the math more complicated. I do, however, take the levain water and flour into account, since this is much later (relative to other ingredients). Hope that helps!
Your answer makes great sense, and thanks for taking your time to answer it!!! I hope you have a super day!!
So, i am really struggling with these calculations and the need for “%” to guide your recipe weight
in your example above when you discuss adding 15% walnuts:
1) How did you come up with an add of 15″%”? why not for example 5% or an amount in grams?
2) Why did the total amount of other ingreients go down? is the calculation based on weight? will that weight calulation requirement cause the dough to become too wet beause because the nuts will just add volume and not necessarily dry out the dough?
does that make sense?
thank you !!
The 15% was just arbitrary, used as an example!
The rest of the ingredient weights were reduced when the walnuts added because everything is now recomputed to maintain the desired total dough weight (in other words, walnuts were now added, so flour and everything else has to be deceased otherwise the total amount of dough would increase as well).
Hope that makes sense!
I was using bakers percentage to also figure out final dough weight for my pizza dough.
Flour 500g 100%
Salt 16g 3%
Yeast 1g .02%
Water 350g 70%
And came up with a final dough of just shy of 1500g. When making the pizzas I wasn’t even able to make 3 x 300g pizzas. Not sure what I am doing wrong.
Ok just figured it out. I multiplied the totaled percentage by the total weight of everything and not just by the weight of the flour alone. That makes sense.
Yes, that’s correct, Andy! Sorry for the delay.
No need to apologize! Love your approach to baking.
I adore how meticulous and organized your formulas and directions are! Could you tell me more about the importance of preferment % in the Vitals? If I build my Levain differently than you, our PFF% will be different. How does that impact the final product?
Thank you, Elizabeth! Generally, the higher the pff % the faster your dough will ferment (the higher the inoculation into your dough, the more bacteria/yeast you’re moving over).
Your mathematical formula is unnecessarily complicated.
Simply divide the target yield by recipe yield, and multiply that value per ingredient.
Yield Adjustment: 2,700g / 1,800g = 1.5
Bread flour: 805.8g * 1.5 = 1208.7g
Whole wheat flour: 201.5g * 1.5 = 302.25g
Water: 765.5g * 1.5 = 1148.25g
Salt: 19.1g * 1.5 = 28.65g
Sourdough Starter: 8.1g * 1.5 = 12.15g
Hey, Lee! Yes, that’s another way to go about it. I need to update this post with a few more options and some easier ways to do these calculations!
It’s a great read Maurizio, thanks for it!
One area that is still not clear for me to understand is how to arrive at relative changes when adding/removing ingredients from a recipe.
I don’t have the formula for adding 15% walnuts while retaining 1,800g yield. It seems tricky because you need to calculate 15% of the walnuts based on the flour weight, but the flour weight needs to adjust to accommodate the addition of walnuts.
I have all these things plugged into a spreadsheet at this point since I do these calculations often, but yes, if you add in ingredients, the flour will have to go down to maintain the same dough yield.
I remember one other person asking this question, I’ll have to include an example like this in the post!
Hi Maurizio,
I am confused… what is the formula for adjusting the weights when adding the walnuts in your example? I can understand why they change but not the process of how.
thanks
Hi Alex,
Your knowns would be the weight of the walnuts relative to the flour (in this case 15% of the total flour weight) and the weight of the fully baked loaf of bread (in this case 1800 g).
If we let “x” represent the amount of total flour in grams, then the equation becomes:
x + 76%x + 1.9%x + 0.8%x + 15%x = 1800 g
(flour wt) + (water wt) + (salt wt) + (starter wt) + (walnut wt) = 1800 g
x = 929.27 g
which means the individual weights are the following:
flour wt (protein flour + wheat flour) = 929.27 g
water wt = 929.27 g x 76% = 706.2 g
salt wt = 929.27 g x 1.9% = 17.7g
starter wt = 929.27 g x 0.8% = 7.4 g
walnut wt = 929.27 g x 15% = 139.4 g
(The above may have some rounding discrepancies but they pretty much align with the author’s numbers).
Now we can further determine the weight of the two different flours used separately.
high protein bread flour, malted = 929.27 g x 80% = 743.4 g
whole wheat flour = 929.27 g x 20% = 185.9
(Note that the flour in the starter did not factor into the total flour equations for the reasons the author already spoke of in the article near the end).
You would use this equation if you wanted the same amount of bread (1800 g worth) despite the addition of walnuts (maybe the extra weight/volume would not be tolerated by your baking pans or your oven/bread-maker).
Hope that helps.
I enjoy your site so much, Maurizio. I have a question re a phenomenon I sporadically encounter, but more often with this bread, namely, that it gets stickier as I slap-and-fold. I sometimes wet my fingers but don’t think that the few drops are what cause this to happen. I presume it’s because the flour is absorbing more. But is that why? And what should I do about it? Does that mean that I started off with too high a hydration? Thank you!
Glad to hear that, Jessica! I would actually recommend you dampen your hands periodically when you do SF, which will help prevent sticking and tearing–that added water will not harm things. It’s ok if the dough breaks apart, this is actually normal. If the dough is too hard to SF, try starting out will less water and add the rest in after you’ve SF’ed for several minutes. Add the dough back to the bowl and squeeze the water into the dough, which will break apart–but that’s ok! This same thing happens if you mix in a mixer and is expected. Overall, though, the dough will strengthen over time, even if it looks like its breaking apart.
Hello there, this is very useful. Can you explain where I would include ingredients like flaxmeal and oats in the calculation? Are they included in the flour or are they ‘others’?
Hey, Deborah. They are not included in the flour, they’d be others, mix-ins, or inclusions.
Hi Maurizio. Thank you . For a self taught baker like me the information here is invaluable. My question is , for a hot and humid climate (32C) what would be the ideal percentage of Levan such that the bread does not get too acidic. Fermentation happens quickly . At times I keep the dough in the refrigerator for bulk fermentation cause keeping the aircon on the whole day is ….. Thank you.
Hey there! It’s really hard to say, it depends on other factors as well (hydration, flour, etc.). At those warm temps, I’d expect to have to drop things significantly, likely single-digits. You might also want to consider switching to a stiff starter and/or levain which I find can work a little more effectively in warm conditions.
So, the flour in the sourdough is not counted to the total flour? And the water in the sourdough not counted toward the hydration?
I typically do not count the sourdough starter. I’ve noticed many other bakers do not either. For me, my starter is usually a small overall percentage in the dough (the levain, which is counted is much larger by comparison) so I omit that from the calculations. If you wanted to be super accurate, you could certainly factor your starter in!
Can you please explain when loaves are referred to as 500g/1 kg/1 pound etc? Is that number the total weigh or just the flour measurement? I am trying to purchase new bannetons and they mention dough weight.
For baskets, that will be the total dough weight (all the stuff in the mix: water, flour, salt, etc.) to fit in the basket.
Hello! Thank you for being a resource I’m baking the loaf below but the leavain percentage seems extremely high to me. Would I use all of the levain when mixing it with the other ingredients? I’m used to using starter directly not premixing a levain.
For the levain/sponge
22 g sourdough starter
105 g all purpose flour (approx ¾ cup) plain flour
105 ml water lukewarm
To make loaf
230 g bread flour
115 g wholewheat flour
210 ml water lukewarm
8 g salt
That is a high levain percentage (about 67%), but it depends on the recipe and formula you’re using, maybe that’s the intention (although I’ve never personally baked with that high of a preferment percentage). If it were me, I’d drop it down to 20% or so, so only use about 70g of the levain.
Hi Maurizio,
In you’re Sourdough recipe where you use the Starter directly ,it says Mature Starter ( 100 hydration )
My starter is as follows, discard all but 75 gram. Add 100 g flour, 115 water . So to achieve 100 percent hydration, I would only add 100 g water for its feed ??
Also doe mature mean, the starter has been refreshed and at its optimum to be used ?
Thanks for all your writings.
Nic
That’s right, 100% hydration is the same amount of water as flour. But use whatever you have, if your starter has 115% hydration that’s just fine, too. When I say mature I mean “ripe,” when it’s fully fermented and you’d normally give it a refreshment.
Hi Maurizio,
Can you please share what the perfect range is for Levain PH to give a good rise but not yield in a very sour bread?
Cheers
Maziar
Since I don’t use a pH meter I can’t say, I instead go by aroma, look, feel!
Hey!
I just was reading this as I made an avocado loaf today where I used 250g of avocado for 500g of flour in total. I also used 200g of water.
My end result was quite dense, though I managed to get some rise and air pockets in the final dough.
My main question here, is how do I calculate something like blended avocado? Should I factor that it will be partially liquid, or account for it to be an additional solid?
I played it rather low on the hydration at only 40%, thinking the avocado mash would substitute and raise it to maybe a 55-60%. The dough ended being really quite slack and reminded me a lot of when I make 65% hydration.
Any advice is extremely appreciated!
Whoa, that’s an interesting approach. Honestly, I’m not quite sure. I’d see the avocado as a mix-in (inclusion) instead of a flour, liquid.
Hello ,
Thanks for the information.
Id like to ask a question so if I want to use all purpose flour instead of the bread flour here in the basic recipe. How does the percentages change? Do I keep everything the same except for the water?
Moving to my second question which is ; if I want to reduce the amount of water , do I I have to change anything else in the recipe? Also while building the levain?
Thank you
That’s right, if you want to substitute out AP for bread flour, all will be the same. I find with most bread flour (higher protein than AP, around 12-13%), the dough needs a little added water. I’ll add that water during mixing, a small splash at a time.
If you want to reduce the overall hydration properly and change the percentage of water, yes, you’ll have to adjust the weights of all the other ingredients. However, if it’s a small adjustment during mixing (to adjust “by feel,” as I usually say), it’s fine to just adjust in the kitchen. I do like to take notes of the adjustment, and if it’s significant, go back and modify the formula (so I don’t forget next time!).
Hello! Thank you
So I made this recipe today , Ill be baking it tomorrow and let you know:))
I have a couple of other questions if you can help me out with please .
1. So I followed the recipe as is , but regarding the levain , First can I make a levain that will be ready in less than 10 hours , if yes then what should I do different?
Second, is the starter percentage 0.008%? I wasn’t sure of it and if I want to make as the previous question so what should be the percentage of my starter now?
Third, can I just change the percentage of water and then keep everything the same ? For example
All purpose flour 80%
Ww flour 20%
Water 70%
salt 1.8%
Starter ( Im not sure how much as I mentioned above ) .
Lastly, lets say I want to add walnuts , I read and understood how to change the amounts of other things in the recipe but the levain is always not clear for me. I always don’t know how much to put .
I hope its okay to ask all these questions:)
Thank you again
To make a faster levain, use more of your ripe sourdough starter (i.e. increase the seed percentage). For something like a 5 hour levain at warm temperature, I usually use 50% sourdough starter as the seed.
The starter percentage can be low to make a levain, but .008% seems very, very low!
I’d suggest you setup a spreadsheet to do all of these calculations. I’m working on getting my spreadsheet uploaded here for everyone to use!
Hi Maurizio, thanks for your sharing. It really inspires me. I have some questions, hopefully you will reply it, thank you very much.
, 1. I always use 20% levain in my baker percentage. But still got too acidic For me. If I lower the levain, in my baker percentage, it will be more acid?
2. If I use more levain, said 30%, what the effect for my loaf? I used to maintain the yield, if I didnt mistake your lesson, so, The other ingredients still have same percentage.
3. Can I use baker percentage to my brioche recipe?
You’re welcome, Melina.
1. Reducing the levain might help, but there are many factors that go into the ending flavor of your bread! I’d say a quick thing to try would be to be sure and refresh your starter often to keep acidity low, use it before it becomes excessively ripe, and keep your dough on the cooler side.
2. Using more levain will speed up the fermentation timeline. But yes, if you want to increase the quantity of one ingredient, you have to adjust the quantity for the others. This is why baker’s percentages are so helpful, you can adjust the percentage of one ingredient (in a spreadsheet, helps!) and everything else stays in line.
3. Yes, you can use baker’s percentages in any recipe.