Water at 65% does not mean water forms 65% of the finished dough. In baker percentages, the reference is flour. Each ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total flour mass.
The Whatson Baker’s Percentage Calculator starts with an existing formula in grams, shows those percentages and rescales the formula to a new flour quantity.
Flour occupies the 100% row
Enter the original flour mass once. If your recipe combines several flours, add their masses to obtain that total; do not enter the same flour a second time as an extra ingredient row.
King Arthur Baking’s baker math explanation describes this flour based percentage convention. The percentages can total more than 100 because flour itself is already 100.
Moving from 500 g flour to 750 g
For the checked example, enter 500 g flour, 325 g water, 10 g salt and 5 g yeast. Set the target flour mass to 750 g.
| Ingredient | Baker percentage | New mass |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100% | 750 g |
| Water | 65% | 487.5 g |
| Salt | 2% | 15 g |
| Yeast | 1% | 7.5 g |
The flour scale factor is 1.5. Original formula mass is 840 g; the rescaled mass is 1,260 g. The target of 750 g refers to flour, not to total dough.
Separate ingredient identity from the arithmetic
The extra rows have names and masses. The tool treats those masses as separate additions and applies the same flour multiplier. Naming a row starter does not cause its internal flour and water to be split automatically.
For a flour and water hydration calculation including starter, use Dough Hydration Calculator. For a target sourdough formula with an explicit starter allocation, use Sourdough Recipe Calculator.
Use total dough tools when portions set the target
If you know you want four 250 g pizza balls, you have a dough mass target rather than a flour target. Pizza Dough Calculator solves flour from the requested dough mass and entered percentages.
This distinction prevents a common worksheet error: entering the desired finished batch mass as target flour and then adding all the other ingredients on top.
Keep each ingredient row explicit and recalculate after any change. The exported percentages preserve your chosen formula; they do not select a yeast type, fermentation schedule or a flour suited to a particular product.