Dough Calculator
The general-purpose baker's percentage calculator behind every tool on this site. Start from the total dough weight you need or the flour you have, set your percentages, and get every ingredient in grams, divided into as many pieces as you like.
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How to use the dough calculator
- Choose a mode: start from total weight when you know how much dough you need (say, 8 rolls at 75 grams each), or start from flour when you know how much flour you want to use.
- Set the hydration with the slider: water as a percentage of flour.
- Enter salt, yeast, oil, and sugar percentages. Leave anything you are not using at zero and it drops out of the recipe.
- Use divide into pieces to split the batch into equal rolls, balls, or loaves.
- Weigh everything on a scale. Copy the shareable link or save the recipe to keep your formula.
How the baker's percentage math works
Baker's percentage expresses every ingredient relative to the flour, which is always 100 percent. Starting from flour is simple multiplication: 500 grams of flour at 65 percent hydration needs 500 × 0.65 = 325 grams of water, and 2 percent salt is 500 × 0.02 = 10 grams. Starting from a total dough weight runs the same relationship backwards. The dough is flour plus everything else, so the total equals the flour multiplied by 1 plus the sum of the other percentages, and the calculator solves for flour first.
Here is a worked example. Say you want exactly 1,000 grams of dough at 65 percent hydration, 2 percent salt, and 1 percent yeast. The percentages other than flour add up to 0.68, so the divisor is 1.68 and the flour is 1,000 / 1.68, which is about 595 grams. From there, water is 595 × 0.65, about 387 grams; salt is about 12 grams; and yeast is about 6 grams. Add them up and you are back at 1,000 grams, ready to divide into pieces. That inversion is the entire trick, and it is why professional formulas are written as percentages instead of cups. For the full story, including common mistakes, read our guide to what baker's percentage is.
What the percentages do
- Hydration sets the character of the dough: lower is firmer and easier to shape, higher is stickier with a more open crumb. Around 60 to 75 percent covers most breads; see typical ranges in the bread hydration calculator.
- Salt is usually about 2 percent. It seasons the dough, tightens the gluten, and slows fermentation slightly.
- Yeast controls speed. More yeast rises faster; a small amount plus a long, cold fermentation builds more flavor.
- Oil softens the crumb and helps keep bread fresh; around 2 to 5 percent is common in sandwich loaves and New York pizza.
- Sugar feeds browning and tenderness; roughly 1 to 5 percent in soft breads, more in sweet doughs.
One engine, every dough
This is the exact engine used by our specialized calculators, exposed with all its dials. Use it for focaccia, rolls, bagels, flatbreads, or any recipe you want to convert into a scalable formula. If you are making pizza, the pizza dough calculator adds style presets and per-ball weights, and if you bake with a starter, the sourdough hydration calculator folds the starter's flour and water into the totals for you.
Gear for baking by weight
Affiliate links · we may earn a commission- Kitchen scale (0.1 g) →Percentages are ratios of weights. Everything on this page assumes a scale.
- Bench scraper →Divides dough into clean, equal pieces and keeps sticky dough moving.
- Dough proofing containers →Straight-sided tubs make it easy to see exactly how much the dough has risen.
- Dutch oven →Turns a home oven into a steam oven for crusty hearth loaves.
Frequently asked questions
What is baker's percentage?
A convention where every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight, with flour always set to 100 percent. A 65 percent hydration dough has 65 grams of water per 100 grams of flour. It makes recipes scalable to any size and easy to compare at a glance.
Why is flour always 100 percent?
Flour is the base of every dough, so it makes the most stable reference point. Pinning flour at 100 percent means the other percentages describe ratios, not amounts: 2 percent salt means the same thing in a 500 gram batch as in a 5 kilogram batch.
Should I start from total weight or flour weight?
Start from total weight when you know how much dough you need, for example 4 rolls at 90 grams each is 360 grams. Start from flour when you know what you have, for example a 500 gram bag of flour to use up. Both modes run the same math in opposite directions.
What percentages make a basic bread dough?
A common starting point is 65 percent water, 2 percent salt, and about 1 percent instant yeast, with everything else at zero. For a soft enriched dough, bakers often add a few percent oil and sugar. Styles vary, so adjust from there.
How much yeast should I use?
Roughly 0.5 to 1.5 percent instant yeast covers most same-day doughs, with less yeast for longer or colder fermentation. Active dry yeast is used at a slightly higher rate, and fresh yeast at roughly two to three times the instant amount.
Can I use this for pizza or sourdough?
Yes, the math is identical, but the dedicated tools are more convenient: the pizza dough calculator has style presets and ball weights, and the sourdough hydration calculator splits your starter into its flour and water so the hydration figure stays true.
More dough tools and guides
Specialized tools: the pizza dough calculator, sourdough hydration calculator, and bread hydration calculator. Background reading: what is baker's percentage, pizza dough hydration by style, and the pizza dough ball weight guide.