Bread Calculator

What Is the Bread Calculator?

The bread calculator applies baker's math to your loaves so every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight. Flour is always set to 100 percent, and water, salt, sugar, oil, starter, and yeast are calculated relative to it. Enter a desired dough weight and hydration level, and the calculator returns exact gram or ounce measurements for each ingredient.

This is how professional bakers scale recipes, and it works because dough properties depend on ratios, not on absolute amounts. The same percentages that make a 500 gram boule will make a 5 kilogram batch with identical texture and flavor.

Typical Dough Hydration Levels

Hydration is the water weight divided by flour weight, and it defines how your bread bakes. Soft sandwich loaves and enriched breads usually sit at 58 to 65 percent. Standard artisan loaves land around 65 to 72 percent, producing an open crumb and chewy crust, while high hydration Ciabatta style doughs and some sourdoughs push toward 75 to 85 percent and become sticky, slack doughs that need a bowl scraper and confidence.

Whole wheat flour absorbs more water than white flour, often requiring 3 to 8 percentage points more hydration for the same feel. If a dense crumb keeps disappointing you, raising hydration is usually the first fix worth trying.

Salt, Yeast, and Sourdough Starter Percentages

Salt lands at 1.8 to 2.2 percent of flour weight in almost every bread: it seasons, tightens gluten, and moderates fermentation. Sugar and oil vary widely by style, from zero in lean French bread to 10 percent or more in brioche style doughs.

Commercial yeast depends on proofing time and temperature. For a 12 hour cool proof near 22 degrees Celsius, roughly 0.5 to 1 percent instant dry yeast is typical, while a fast 1 to 2 hour rise at warm room temperature wants 1.5 to 2 percent. Active dry yeast runs about 10 percent higher than instant, and fresh yeast takes roughly three times the weight. When using a sourdough starter, count both its flour and water toward the totals, and the calculator can also report the hydration of your starter itself.

How to Use the Bread Calculator

Choose one of three modes. In dough mode, enter your target dough weight, the hydration you want, and the percentages for salt, sugar, oil, and your leavening agent. In hydration mode, enter the weights from an existing recipe and the tool reports its hydration percentage. In starter mode, enter starter flour and water weights to see the starter's own hydration.

The outputs scale instantly with your unit system, supporting imperial and metric. Once you have the ingredient list, combine, knead, bulk ferment, shape, proof, and bake as usual, confident that the math behind the recipe is sound.