Baker's percentage formula can be a somewhat confusing because you do not end up at 100% when you add all the percentages together. You also have to use a bit of math to figure out how to mix your own breads. But it has some major advantages.

You can easily convert a recipe if you need to make 25 bread instead of 20

It's easier to remember recipes as a percentage formula since they are the same regardless of the amount of bread and the size of the loaf.

You'll get easier overview of "patterns" in your recipes so you understand bread better. You will get an instinctive feel for any bread recipe.

You can easily change a small part of the recipe in an educated manner and see what effect it has.

In the examples below I use the metric system. If you find that confusing then just think of gram (g) as ounce (oz). The important thing is that you just use one unit. So no mixing of oz and lbs for example. Then the calculations will be all the same.

How does it work?

You calculate any ingredients "percentage" relative to the total amount of flour in the recipe. This includes whole flour, flour kernels, whole wheat, rye flour, etc etc. Any flour whatsoever and you add them together and find the total weight.

This weight is defined as "100%". The rest of the ingredients of the recipe are then calculated in relation to that total weight.

A normal recipe (example) - step 1

A simple recipe for spelt bread can be:

375 g of wheat flour

125 g spelt flour

2 tsp salt

4 dl water

yeast the size of a pea

The above recipe use a mix of weight and volume: gram, dl (100 ml), tsp, pea. This is perfectly normal, and is often used to make the measurements faster in a home kitchen. But it is unusable for calculating the bakers percentage.

First, we need to convert all the ingredient values into weight - Step 2

375 g of wheat flour

125 g spelt flour

14 g of salt (1 teaspoon = 7 grams)

400 g of water

2 g of yeast

The total flour weight (tfw) - Step 3

tfw= 375 g wheat flour + 125 g spelt flour = 500 g total flour

At this stage we can compare the amounts directly. We can even put them in a graph. You don't usually do this, but it might visualise the principle better. So here goes.