Baker’s Percentage Tutorial, Part 1
If you bake bread, sooner or later you’re going to encounter (cue ominous music) Baker’s Percentage. Did I just strike fear in your heart? No doubt about it, this can be confusing, even scary, stuff. But it really doesn’t have to be.
My first brush with Baker’s Percentage (BP) came a few days after baking my first loaves, as I was perusing my newly-acquired copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. I saw these weird sidebar versions of all the recipes in which the total of the ingredients always added up to more than 100%.
My first thought: Huh? Wow, this fellow really needs a math lesson.
This was followed pretty quickly by a second thought: Mr. Reinhart is a rock star baker and he’s managed to get quite a few books published; just maybe he knows a little more than you do about this, my dear. Maybe he’s on to something.
Lucky for me I had that second thought. It turns out that this convention, which to my knowledge is unique to bread bakers, is both straightforward and useful.
With a grasp of BP and a bit of knowledge about basic dough formula parameters, you can:
- easily scale recipes to make the exact amount of dough you need
- compare different formulas
- quickly discern whether the ingredients in a given formula seem to be balanced
- make an educated guess about the kind of bread you’ll get from a formula
- understand how professional (and many amateur) bakers talk about their formulas
So, what is this Baker’s Percentage? It’s a way of listing the ingredients in a recipe (formula) where the amount of each ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total amount of flour in the recipe, by weight. Now don’t panic, we’re going to break this down into simple steps.
First, though, I need to emphasize how critical the “by weight” part is. If you don’t weigh your ingredients, and my rant-cum-post on the subject a couple of weeks ago didn’t convince you, stop reading now; BP will not be useful to you.
OK, it seems you’re still with me, so let’s consider a straightforward example. (You may want to grab a calculator; that’s not cheating.)
Let’s say we are making a simple white bread with the following ingredients.
- 500 g flour
- 330 g water
- 5 g dry instant yeast (DIY)
- 10 g salt
(Note that the amount of each ingredient is specified in grams. You can use ounces, pounds, whatever, as long as the units are consistent for all ingredients. This is very important. I like grams.)
Now we’ll convert this recipe to a BP formula.
First we note the total amount of flour in the recipe: 500 g.
Now we look at each ingredient in turn. We want to know how much of that ingredient there is, relative to the 500 g of flour. The calculation for percentage is always
ingredient weight divided by total flour weight
then move the decimal point two places to the right
So we have:
- Flour: 500/500 = 1.00 = 100%
- Water: 330/500 = 0.66 = 66%
- DIY: 5/500 = .01 = 1%
- Salt: 10/500 = .02 = 2%
So now our formula, expressed in BP, is
- 100% flour
- 66% water
- 1% DIY
- 2% salt
Note that the BP by itself doesn’t tell us the absolute amount of each ingredient (that will depend on how much dough we want to make), but does tell us the ratio of each ingredient to the main ingredient, flour.
If the formula has more than one type of flour, it’s only slightly more complicated. Consider these ingredients:
- 500 g white flour
- 400 g whole wheat flour
- 650 g water
- 5.4 g DIY
- 18 g salt
- 200 g sesame seeds
The total amount of flour is 900 g (500 g white flour + 400 g whole wheat flour). Again, look at each ingredient to find its percentage relative to the total 900 g:
- White flour: 56% (500/900)
- Whole wheat flour: 44% (400/900)
- Water: 72% (650/900)
- DIY: 0.6% (5.4/900)
- Salt: 2% (18/900)
- Sesame seeds: 22% (200/900)
Notice that the percentages of the flours always add up to 100% (56% + 44%).
I’m going to let this sink in a while. I’ll be back in a few days with another installment, for those who would like to know more about what to do with all these percentages now that you can calculate them.
In the meantime, in case you want to be as geeky as me, click here for a few practice exercises.
[Update: Here's Part 2.]
Gretchen Noelle March 22 2008 at 07:38 am 1
Gracious…thank you! I was just perusing your blog for things to do with my sourdough starter and am so confused by all the different numbers. I also recently bought a Peruvian Breads cookbook that give weight and percentages. This really helps to understand, now I will just need to put this all into practice!!
Dave March 22 2008 at 07:43 am 2
I’m lucky enough to understand and have worked with BP for many years but I think it’s really great how you’ve set this up and taken the time to help people who can find this daunting. I look forward to part two.
Every time I check in I’m always impressed by your site and what a great teaching tool and source of information it is. Thanks!
Dave
MyKitchenInHalfCups March 22 2008 at 08:01 am 3
Wow, well maybe I’m getting a glimmer of understanding here. I’ve read over this idea and fiddle with the formulas so many times, it’s about time something started to make sense. Thanks once again Susan.
jokergirl March 22 2008 at 09:43 am 4
Yay! Finally a post to help me scale down recipes. Thank you!
Heather March 22 2008 at 04:53 pm 5
Wow. That is so cool, and the way you present it, is so easily understandable. I never could understand it before, but I sure do now. This opens a whole new world as far as converintg recipes to smaller or larger amounts. Thanks!!!
Dan March 23 2008 at 07:22 am 6
Very clear and concise as always. I definitely need to start practicing with the BP & get comfortable with it. Thanks for the motivation. Happy Easter!
Lori March 24 2008 at 03:23 pm 7
Hi!
So funny when I first started reading this post I thought…. bakers percentage… the number of times you have failed and the number of times you have succeeded… Then I read more and realized. Yes, I have this book as well and it was SO educational for me. Its funny, I didnt much pay attention to that now I feel I must go back and read that again. (Love the bagels in the book).
maybelles mom March 24 2008 at 07:19 pm 8
Oh, very edifying post. I will likely have to read it a couple times to get it–my guess is that I will have to reread it another time to really understand it.
Baking Bread by weight - Discuss Cooking Forum March 24 2008 at 07:31 pm 9
[...] amount of flour used in the recipe. A good introduction to the bakers percentage can be found at Baker’s Percentage Tutorial, Part 1 | Wild Yeast For those who have a firm understanding of the bakers percentage, the answer is - you would split [...]
Caramella Mou March 25 2008 at 02:16 am 10
Hello,
I’ve never heard of this BP before, though I’ve only recently delved into serious baking and I must say, this is a brilliant concept. Thank you so very much for this post. I’ll now go through all my recipes and calculate them into BPs.
Caramella
Helen March 25 2008 at 11:51 am 11
This is brilliant. You’ve broken things down into simple steps. I love your site, it’s such a great resource for bread info and recipes.
Una questione di percentuali - Parte 1 - Esercizisuglutine April 23 2008 at 07:13 am 12
[...] contenuto originale della seguente traduzione è disponibile su Wild Yeast all’indirizzo: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/bp-exercises-1/ Esprimi ogni lista di ingredienti in Percentuale del [...]
Una questione di percentuali - Parte 1 - Esercizi e Rispostesuglutine April 23 2008 at 07:19 am 13
[...] contenuto originale della seguente traduzione è disponibile su Wild Yeast all’indirizzo: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/bp-exercises-1-answers/ Esprimi ogni lista di ingredienti in Percentuale del [...]
Una questione di percentuali - Parte 1suglutine April 23 2008 at 07:55 am 14
[...] Il contenuto originale della seguente traduzione è reperibile su Wild Yeast all’indirizzo: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/03/22/bakers-percentage-1/ [...]
Una questione di percentuali - Parte 2suglutine May 9 2008 at 03:42 am 15
[...] Il contenuto originale della seguente traduzione è reperibile su Wild Yeast all’indirizzo: http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/03/26/bakers-percentage-2/ [...]
blog from OUR kitchen » How much yeast is in a “cake of yeast”? May 22 2008 at 06:31 am 16
[...] (Wild Yeast) wrote a very useful post about various yeasts and their equivalents. Her posts about Baker’s Percentage look to be most worthwhile as well. In fact, just about everything on Susan’s site is [...]
Elizabeth May 22 2008 at 08:17 am 17
It has taken years for me to even think about wrapping my brain around baker’s percentage. (Yes, it’s true, I loathe change.) And I’ve finally paid attention long enough to see that it really is simple. Thank you for spelling it out so succinctly.
Question:
Could Baker’s percentage be done with volume measures as well? For instance, I make a biga using:
1/8 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 c + 2 tsp water
1 + 1/4 c unbleached all-purpose flour
(1 c = 16 Tbsp = 48 tsp)
Am I correct with the following calculation?
2% active dry yeast
43% water
100% flour
Susan May 23 2008 at 07:51 am 18
Elizabeth, if a system of using percentages with volume measurements is useful to you, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t use it. However, I’d recommend not calling it “Baker’s Percentage,” at least outside your own kitchen. It would be like using the word “tuba” to refer to a stringed instrument held under the chin and played with a bow — it will confuse people and hinder communication. The term “Baker’s Percentage” refers to a system that uses weight measurements.
Elizabeth May 24 2008 at 10:07 am 19
No, I believe you’re right, Susan, I shouldn’t even think about confusing the issue by calling a violin a tuba and expect people to even begin to understand what I mean.
On further reflection, I’m not at all convinced that this would work even remotely with volume measurements. I think the following calculations are right, based on 2+1/2tsp active dry yeast being 8gm, 130ml water being 130gm and 1/2 c all-purpose flour being 66gm:
The same biga in gram measurements:
.04 gm active dry yeast
130 gm water
165 gm unbleached all-purpose flour
which would be (if I’m understanding the percentage thing correctly):
.02% active dry yeast
78% water
100% unbleached all-purpose flour
Percentages based on the weights are quite different from those based on volume measures!
-Elizabeth
P.S. If, instead of the rather inadequate spring loaded scale we own now, I had tons of counter space and a really great accurate scale that would hold our mixing bowl so I could weigh things easily without spilling them everywhere, I’d be a complete and total convert to using weights only. (How’s THAT for a run-on sentence?!)