You may have noticed that for some sourdough bread recipes there are percentages next to the weights or you may have heard someone say that their sourdough bread was "80% hydration".
These refer to baker's percentages or baker's math. Baker's percentages are a way to scale up or down sourdough bread recipes easily, and also to use only one unit of measure (like grams) which enables the baker to be more precise.
In Baker's Percentages, flour is always at 100%, and the rest of the ingredients are a percentage of a flour's weight. So if a baker said that they used 1000g of flour and their hydration was at 80%, this means that they used 800g of water in their recipe.
To determine the percentage of the other ingredients in a recipe the formula is as follows:
(weight of ingredient ÷ weight of flour) x 100 = %
From this, you can adjust the recipe as needed. If you found that the hydration level in this recipe was too high and difficult for you to work with you may want to adjust the recipe's hydration. To do this you would use the following formula.
weight of flour x percentage of ingredient = weight of ingredient
or 1000 grams x 70% = 700 grams.
Sometimes you will see Baker's Percentages used in recipes beyond sourdough bread but this is less common and not widely used.
Find the rest of our sourdough baking resources here.
Comments
This is great. I’ve always been a bit confused about bakers percentages. But I’ve never seen it explained so simply and clearly. I really understand it now. Thank you so much!
Hi Collis, we mean a sourdough fold (4 times). Thanks for your question, we appreciate it!
Hi folks – In focaccia recipe: after adding salt you advise to “fold once”. Does this mean literally to fold over one time or do four folds (one each side) as in other (say sourdough) recipes.? Love this site and what you are doung for breadheads in the city!
We are so glad Christine!
Thank you for this easy to understand formula. I’m brand new to sourdough and it’s a little confusing!