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Website | Instagram | YouTube

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Hey there new baker! My name is Maurizio, and I'm the baker here; welcome.

This new baker, start here page has a rollup of resources that'll help you get baking sourdough bread quickly in your home kitchen. It begins with creating a sourdough starter from scratch (just flour and water!), your first sourdough bread, a few guides, and some of my favorite (and reader's favorite) recipes.

For new bakers, sourdough can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. You'll be baking crusty and healthy loaves of bread with a few essential basics in short order. And if you get stuck? I'm almost always lurking around here, answering questions and providing help - leave a comment, and I'll get back to you.

Step 1. Create your sourdough starter

A sourdough starter is the most important aspect of baking sourdough bread at home, and without it, you'd have flour and water mixed. It takes a little care to keep it alive, but it'll reward you with countless loaves of bread, pizza, and more.

It takes about 5-7 days to get a starter going from scratch, using only flour and water. But, of course, if you have a friend who is a sourdough baker, you can always ask if they'll give you a bit of theirs to get going. If not:
Check out my guide to creating a sourdough starter from scratch →
Step 2. Bake your first loaf of bread

Once your sourdough starter consistently shows the same signs of fermentation each day, it should be strong enough to bake a loaf of bread. I have two recipes here that are great introductions to baking sourdough at home. The first is a long post with lots of detail on each aspect of baking. Scroll through that post if you want a little more in-depth information:

Bake my Beginner's Sourdough Bread Recipe →

If you want a more condensed recipe that gets straight to baking, have a look at my simple weekday sourdough bread:

Step 3. Review baking guides

Once you have that loaf of bread crackling on the counter as it cools, review some of my baking guides to increase baking consistency and confidence. These guides have in-depth tips on maintaining a sourdough starter (with video walkthrough), creating baking schedules around your busy work week, working with baker's percentages (baker's math) to scale up and down recipes, and numerous guides to shaping bread dough.

📝 Download and print out my baking notes page to help you track each bake in your home kitchen. Taking notes is a simple yet effective way to help you remember what worked (and didn't!).

My Guides Page is a great place to bookmark and return to from time to time to review the basics and expand your baking toolset:
Explore my baking guides page →

Step 4. Use your sourdough starter for other things

Because a sourdough starter requires fresh flour and water each day (or less if you're keeping it in the fridge), we tend to have sourdough starter discard-don't throw it away! Instead, I like to save up the discard in a container in the fridge during the week, then use this to make sourdough pancakes, sourdough waffles, and sourdough banana bread.
See my collection of sourdough starter discard recipes →
I'm also a huge fan of focaccia. This is probably one of the most-baked items in my kitchen, and my recipe couldn't be easier. Use all of your sourdough starter discard one morning, and you'll have fresh focaccia for dinner (and it's an amazing canvas for any veggies in season!): check out my sourdough focaccia recipe.

Step 5. Upgrade your baking tools

One of the challenges of baking at home is consistency. It can be hard to bake consistently great loaves when the environment-our hectic home kitchens!-is always changing. I've collected my tried-and-true tools in one place, and they'll help you make the bread easier and more repeatable in your home kitchen.
Explore all my favorite baking tools →
My top 3 recommended tools (read: if you're going to buy anything, get these):

1. A simple kitchen scale to accurately measure ingredients

2. An instant-read thermometer to quickly and accurately measure dough temperature (temperature is so important in baking)

3. A foldable dough proofer to keep your dough warm and fermentation activity high

Step 6. Check out my top 10 favorite sourdough recipes
Check out the baking community and membership →

1. A Simple Weekday Sourdough Bread

2. My Best Sourdough Bread Recipe

3. Spelt, Rye, and Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread (50% whole grain)

4. Fifty-fifty Whole Wheat Sourdough (50% whole grain)

5. Sourdough Pizza

6. Pain de Mie (super soft sandwich bread)

7. A Simple Focaccia

8. Whole Grain Spelt Pan Loaf

9. Super Soft Sourdough Rolls

10. Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Step 7. Join the 1600+ member community and come chat
Be sure to tag @maurizio on Instagram and use the hashtag #theperfectloaf so I can take a look at all you're baking in the kitchen.
Join the TPL Membership to access our community Discord to talk baking tips, tricks, and troubleshooting. Plus, access exclusive member baking tool discounts, live baking events, and view all pages here ad-free-and a few secret things, too 🤫

Step 8. Experiment, have fun, and happy baking

One last note: don't be afraid to experiment and have fun -after all, what's the worst that can happen? No matter what comes out of your oven in almost every case, it's perfectly edible and delicious. Some of my most significant baking improvements came from accidents that turned into opportunities for me to learn and grow as a baker.

Happy baking!

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New Baker, Start Here | The Perfect Loaf

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New to baking sourdough or The Perfect Loaf? This new baker start here page is the perfect roundup of things to get you started baking sourdough bread at home.

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Website | Instagram | YouTube

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Embrace all the cozy flavours of Fall with these delightful sourdough pumpkin muffins. With the warmth of cinnamon, nutmeg, and the earthy sweetness of pumpkin, each bite is moist, comforting, and fragrant. The sourdough discard adds a subtle complexity to the texture and a depth...

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Matthew James Duffy | Baking Professor And Chef | Sourdough Microbakery | Pizza Fanatic

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Baking Professor and Chef | Sourdough Microbakery | Pizza Fanatic

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Website | Instagram | YouTube

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I made three handy reference sheets to help you with your sourdough journey.

The Sourdough from Scratch Guide is exactly what it sounds like, a visual step-by-step guide for starting a sourdough from scratch.

The Sourdough Feeding Cheat Sheet will help you learn how to maintain your sourdough and also includes some helpful tips and tricks!

The Baker's Math Cheat Sheet will teach you the magic of Baker's Percentages and Baker's Math.

To get all three (for free!) all you need to do is sign up for my mailing list below and they will be sent right to your inbox.

I promise I won't spam you, but you will receive emails from me from time with time with updates about Rosehill, new recipes, and the occasional discount code.

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I made three handy reference sheets to help you with your sourdough journey. The Sourdough from Scratch Guide is exactly what it sounds like, a visual step-by-step guide for starting a sourdough from scratch. The Sourdough Feeding Cheat Sheet will help you learn how to maintain your sourdough and also includes some helpful tips and tricks!

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Instagram

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Website | Instagram

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Jen (@she.bakes.bread) • Instagram photos and videos

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67K Followers, 674 Following, 1,228 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Jen (@she.bakes.bread)

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Andra Stefanescu (@sourdough_explained) • Instagram photos and videos

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244K Followers, 733 Following, 1,042 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Andra Stefanescu (@sourdough_explained)

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Jack Sturgess (@bakewithjack) • Instagram photos and videos

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98K Followers, 58 Following, 2,017 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Jack Sturgess (@bakewithjack)

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The Science of Baking Explained in a Way Anyone Can Understand

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Instagram | YouTube

Trevor's videos & IG Reels have been super helpful for me.

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Open Crumb Mastery: For the Intermediate Sourdough Baker, 2nd Edition

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"How do I get an open crumb?"It's a question we've all asked.This updated and expanded edition of Open Crumb Mastery will provide you the answer. It is an in-depth study of dough structure and the factors which affect it. The main areas of focus are fermentation, structure building, dough handling,

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Amylase

An enzyme that converts starches to sugars.

Autolyse

A 15- to 30-minute rest period after mixing flour and water, before adding salt and yeast. It begins gluten development and reduces kneading time. See Using The Autolyse Method for more information.

Baguette

A long, skinny loaf of French bread. Check out our Classic Baguettes blog post for a recipe and shaping instructions.

Baker's Percentage

A way of expressing formulas in which the flour weight represents 100% and all other ingredients are a percentage of the flour weight. See our Baker's Percentage blog post for more information.

Batard

An oval-shaped loaf.

Banneton

A French-style basket, similar to the German brotform, designed to hold and shape a rising loaf. When the loaf is fully risen, it's turned out of the banneton onto a pan or hot stone to bake.

Biga

An Italian term for a pre-ferment made with flour, water, and yeast. Its texture is generally stiffer than that of the typical liquid sourdough starter.

Boule

A round (ball-shaped) loaf.

Brotform

A German-style basket, similar to the French banneton, that supports a shaped loaf during its final rise. Learn more in the Tools and Supplies section.

Couche

A linen or canvas cloth used to support unbaked yeast loaves, typically baguettes, during their final rise. Learn more in the Tools and Supplies section.

Crumb

The appearance and texture of the inner part of a loaf of bread - often described as being either "open crumb" (lots of irregular holes) or "closed crumb" (fine-textured).

Discard

The portion of starter disposed of when feeding a starter as part of its routine maintenance. Use discard starter in pancakes, muffins, and other recipes as specified. Check out our collection of Sourdough Discard recipes.

Feeding

Adding flour and water to a portion of the starter to support its growth, and to maintain its balance of yeast and bacteria.

Fermentation

The process of yeast consuming sugars and producing carbon dioxide and alcohol; and friendly bacteria (lactobacilli) producing organic acids.

Gluten

The protein found in wheat and some other grains that, when combined with water, gives structure to baked goods.

Lame

A tool to score or slash dough. Check out our blog post, Bread Scoring Techniques, for more.

Levain

A French term for sourdough bread. May also refer to the sourdough starter itself, when used as a pre-ferment in a recipe.

Maillard reaction

A chemical reaction that occurs during baking, giving baked goods their golden brown color and caramelized flavor.

Maintenance

The feeding regimen used to sustain a sourdough starter for use in baking.

Naturally leavened

A term for sourdough bread that uses no commercial yeast.

Oven spring

The rapid rise of yeast bread once it enters an oven, due primarily to carbon dioxide expansion during the initial phase of baking.

Peel

A tool used to load or unload bread from an oven.

Poolish

A starter made of equal parts flour and water, with a small percentage of added yeast.

Pre-ferment

A portion of the overall flour, water, and yeast in a recipe that's mixed and allowed to ferment in advance of mixing the dough.

Proof

The final rise of dough before baking.

Retard

Slowing the fermentation process to increase flavor, usually by reducing the temperature.

Ripe

A mature starter that's ready to use in baking, characterized by lots of bubbles, increased volume, small rivulets across the top, and a fresh, clean, acidic aroma.

Scoring/Slashing

Making cuts on the surface of a proofed loaf immediately before it's baked to guide where and how the loaf expands. Slashing facilitates improved oven spring, good internal crumb structure, and appearance. See our blog post, Bread Scoring Techniques, for more.

Sourdough starter

A culture of wild yeast and bacteria that, when properly maintained, leavens and flavors bread.

FAQ

Did I kill my starter? How do I get more sour flavor? Answers to your critical sourdough questions.

Learn more

Tools

From flour to baking stones, find the right tools to help you achieve sourdough success.

Learn more

How to talk like a baker

New to sourdough baking? This glossary will help you distinguish a biga from a poolish, a batard from a boule, and slashing from scoring. (OK, those last two are different words for the same thing.)

Amylase

An enzyme that converts starches to sugars.

Autolyse

A 15- to 30-minute rest period after mixing flour and water, before adding salt and yeast. It begins gluten development and reduces kneading time. See Using The Autolyse Method for more information.

Baguette

A long, skinny loaf of French bread. Check out our Classic Baguettes blog post for a recipe and shaping instructions.

Baker's Percentage

A way of expressing formulas in which the flour weight represents 100% and all other ingredients are a percentage of the flour weight. See our Baker's Percentage blog post for more information.

Batard

An oval-shaped loaf.

Banneton

A French-style basket, similar to the German brotform, designed to hold and shape a rising loaf. When the loaf is fully risen, it's turned out of the banneton onto a pan or hot stone to bake.

Biga

An Italian term for a pre-ferment made with flour, water, and yeast. Its texture is generally stiffer than that of the typical liquid sourdough starter.

Boule

A round (ball-shaped) loaf.

Brotform

A German-style basket, similar to the French banneton, that supports a shaped loaf during its final rise. Learn more in the Tools and Supplies section.

Couche

A linen or canvas cloth used to support unbaked yeast loaves, typically baguettes, during their final rise. Learn more in the Tools and Supplies section.

Crumb

The appearance and texture of the inner part of a loaf of bread - often described as being either "open crumb" (lots of irregular holes) or "closed crumb" (fine-textured).

Discard

The portion of starter disposed of when feeding a starter as part of its routine maintenance. Use discard starter in pancakes, muffins, and other recipes as specified. Check out our collection of Sourdough Discard recipes.

Feeding

Adding flour and water to a portion of the starter to support its growth, and to maintain its balance of yeast and bacteria.

Fermentation

The process of yeast consuming sugars and producing carbon dioxide and alcohol; and friendly bacteria (lactobacilli) producing organic acids.

Gluten

The protein found in wheat and some other grains that, when combined with water, gives structure to baked goods.

Lame

A tool to score or slash dough. Check out our blog post, Bread Scoring Techniques, for more.

Levain

A French term for sourdough bread. May also refer to the sourdough starter itself, when used as a pre-ferment in a recipe.

Maillard reaction

A chemical reaction that occurs during baking, giving baked goods their golden brown color and caramelized flavor.

Maintenance

The feeding regimen used to sustain a sourdough starter for use in baking.

Naturally leavened

A term for sourdough bread that uses no commercial yeast.

Oven spring

The rapid rise of yeast bread once it enters an oven, due primarily to carbon dioxide expansion during the initial phase of baking.

Peel

A tool used to load or unload bread from an oven.

Poolish

A starter made of equal parts flour and water, with a small percentage of added yeast.

Pre-ferment

A portion of the overall flour, water, and yeast in a recipe that's mixed and allowed to ferment in advance of mixing the dough.

Proof

The final rise of dough before baking.

Retard

Slowing the fermentation process to increase flavor, usually by reducing the temperature.

Ripe

A mature starter that's ready to use in baking, characterized by lots of bubbles, increased volume, small rivulets across the top, and a fresh, clean, acidic aroma.

Scoring/Slashing

Making cuts on the surface of a proofed loaf immediately before it's baked to guide where and how the loaf expands. Slashing facilitates improved oven spring, good internal crumb structure, and appearance. See our blog post, Bread Scoring Techniques, for more.

Sourdough starter

A culture of wild yeast and bacteria that, when properly maintained, leavens and flavors bread.

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Amylase An enzyme that converts starches to sugars. Autolyse A 15- to 30-minute rest period after mixing flour and water, before adding salt and yeast. It begins gluten development and reduces kneading time. See Using The Autolyse Method for more information. Baguette A long, skinny loaf of French bread.

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The best way to shape a bâtard (bread dough)

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Want A More Open Crumb Sourdough? How to Shape A Batard.

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Understanding and working in baker's percentages, also known as baker's math, is a key skill for the home and professional baker alike.

If you've ever wanted to scale up or down a bread recipe, baker's percentages and this page will help you do that. If you've ever wanted to understand what all those percentages and prefermented flour labels are in my posts and bread books, this post will help you do that, too. This introduction to baker's percentages is a place to dig into that not-so-scary math behind baking formulas.

Download my baker's percentage spreadsheets

TPL Members have access to my suite of baking spreadsheets which makes creating and editing bread formulas much easier. In other words, you don't have to worry too much about the ins and outs of baker's percentages; the spreadsheets do all the heavy lifting.

What are baker's percentages?

Baker's percentatges, also known as baker's math or formula percentage, allow a baker to quickly scale up and down recipes, read formulas (recipes) and immediately understand the type of bread it represents, and a way to add and remove ingredients without affecting the entire recipe.

Why Use Baker's Percentages?

The cornerstone of using baker's percentages is that we weigh each ingredient for accuracy (you are weighing, right?), and their individual weight is related to the total flour weight in a recipe. This means the water, salt, preferment, nuts - everything-is a percentage of the total flour weight.

And because we keep flour at the center of everything, it gives us a starting place from which to compare everything. Instead of ingredients as percentages with respect to everything else, they're with respect to flour only. In this way, when we see a dough hydration of 80%, we instinctively know it will likely be a pretty wet dough 1.

With baker's percentages, you can:

quickly scale up and down a recipe

assess a recipe immediately and determine what the end bread might be like when baked (further, it helps us spot gross errors at the formula-creation level)

communicate with other bakers in a standard format to quickly share formulas

add, remove, or change ingredient percentages without affecting the entire formula

First, let's go through a simple calculation to set the stage. A nice stage. A gentle stage. A stage where math is our friend.

Calculating The Baker's Percentage of a Single Ingredient

Here is how you calculate the baker's percentage for any single ingredient in a bread formula:

And that's it! If you want to know what the hydration of a recipe is (i.e., the baker's percentage of the water), just take the total weight of the water, divide it by the total weight of the flour, and multiply it by 100. That'll give you the hydration percentage. And you can do this with any ingredient in the recipe: mix-ins, butter, sugar, oil, etc.

Next, let's work through an example.

An Example

Now that we know how to calculate the baker's percentage for a single ingredient, we apply this to all the ingredients in a recipe to fill out the total formula.

Let's use my Simple Weekend Sourdough Bread as an example to work through. Below is a table you'll typically see here called the Total Formula table; it shows the total weight for each ingredient and its corresponding baker's percentage.

In the table below, you'll see some typical percentages: the flour adds up to 100% (high protein bread flour at 80% and whole wheat flour at 20%), there's water (usually 60% - 100%), some measure of salt (typically 1.8% - 2.3%), and some preferment percentage. For weights, I don't often include sub-gram weights (I round everything up) since most home bakers do not have scales that measure to this precision, and it's not necessary. I included those here, though, so the numbers work out precisely.

Total Formula

A few important things to note:

if you add all the flour percentages, you'll get 100% (80% + 20%)-and this is always true with baker's percentages: the total flour always adds up to 100%

if you add all the percentages, you'll get more than 100%2

In addition to the total formula we also sometimes have a preferment such as a levain. Let's look at that table.

Levain (Preferment)

Many bakes here rely on a dedicated preferment, or what's typically called a levain (leaven) when working with sourdough. A levain is an off-shoot of your sourdough starter, and the difference is clear: the sourdough starter is the ongoing culture maintained indefinitely, whereas a levain ceases to exist once it's mixed in with your dough (and eventually is baked in the oven).

Total Flour in Preferment: 80.6g.

Just like the Total Formula table above, each ingredient is listed with its corresponding weight and baker's percentage. In this case, the baker's percentage of each ingredient is derived from the total flour in the preferment, 80.6g. For example, for the hydration (and baker's percentage) of this levain, we have:

How to scale up or down a bread recipe

Another handy reason to get comfortable with baker's percentages is it becomes extremely easy to scale a recipe up or down (adjust the yield). I learned this method from Jeffrey Hamelman in his Professional Baker's course (and this is also in his highly recommended book, BREAD). Note that this method works for any unit of weight in the formula: pounds, grams, or kilograms.

Steps to scale a formula:

1. Sum all the percentages in the original formula

2. Divide new desired total yield (the total weight you want) by the sum of percentages

3. Round up the result and multiply it by each ingredient's percentage to get the new weight of that ingredient

That's it! Let's work through an example. My Simple Weekday Sourdough recipe makes two 900g loaves, a total yield of 1,800g. Let's say we wanted to make three loaves for a total yield of 2,700g.

1. Sum all the percentages in the formula

2. Divide the new desired total yield by the sum of percentages

3. Round up the result and multiply it by percentages

There you have it, my Simple Weekday Sourdough recipe scaled up to make three 900g loaves for a total yield of 2,700g. Notice it adds up to a bit more than 2,700g. That's because we rounded up the formula conversion factor-as Jeffrey says, it's better to have a little more dough than not enough.

Also, notice the percentages of each ingredient remain the same. We're scaling everything up proportionally to the new desired yield-thank you, baker's percentages!

Can a recipe for two loaves of bread be reduced by half to make just one loaf?

A bread formula (recipe) for a loaf of bread can be doubled to make four loaves or halved to only make a single loaf. To make only a single loaf, halve all the ingredients in the recipe, even the levain.

Let's look at an example and continue with my Simple Weekday Sourdough and halve the recipe to make a single 900-gram loaf. All you do is take every ingredient and divide the weight of that ingredient by 2-including the levain build. The percentages will all stay the same, but the weights will be cut in half. So the total formula table will now be:

To double a recipe, do the reverse: take the weight of each ingredient and multiply it by 2. Again, the percentages will remain the same but the total yield will now be 3,600g.

How to modify a bread formula (recipe)

Next, let's say we wanted to add some walnuts to the Simple Weekday recipe. Where would we begin? We might instinctively say 15% would be a good amount: not too much, but just enough to get the flavor across 3. And the beautiful thing about baker's percentages is we can add the 15% walnuts to the recipe, and all the other ingredient percentages will remain the same. If we kept our final yield at 1,800g, their weights would decrease, but their percentages will stay the same.

And this is important: because we're keeping the percentages the same, their relative effect on the dough will remain the same.

Now let's look at the result. This is the ingredient list before:

Original Formula. Total yield: 1,800g.

And this is the ingredient list after adding in the walnuts (last row):

15% Walnuts Added. Total yield: 1,800g.

After adding 15% walnuts to the formula at right, the weights of all the other ingredients went down proportionally, but their percentages remained the same. This means the ingredients' weights went down by the same amount across the board, giving "room" to add the walnuts to the recipe and still maintain a yield of 1,800g.

Baker's percentages let us focus on a single ingredient and not worry about how it affects others in the formula.

Imagine for a minute what would happen if we added some walnuts to the recipe but didn't have baker's percentages. We'd have to blindly guess their weight and add the walnuts, this would mean our total yield would increase and we'd have an increased dough weight in the end - perhaps our dough wouldn't fit in our desired proofing baskets or we wouldn't be able to fit it in our oven.

With baker's percentages, we can add any percentage of walnuts we desire, and the ratio of other ingredients will remain constant. This lets us focus on just the ingredient we're increasing (or decreasing) and let the rest of the ingredients still play their role.

How to calculate the prefermented flour percentage

Another common term is the prefermented flour (PFF) percentage. This is the percentage of flour that's fermented ahead of time before the main dough is mixed. This percentage can vary widely depending on the recipe (and whether you're using only sourdough, instant yeast, a mixture), all the way down to 1%, and up to 50% - and even outside those extents.

Continuing with my Simple Weekday Sourdough example from above, that recipe has a prefermented flour percentage of 8.00% (listed in the Vitals table). This means that 8% of the total flour in the recipe is in the preferment (levain); let's see how:

Over time, this percentage will begin to convey something instinctively to you, much like the hydration percentage. You'll see 5% or 10% or 25% and think, ok, that's a recipe's low, medium, or high PFF percentage. Based on this intuitive assessment, you'll need to pay attention and make a larger sourdough starter to build the levain (if high PFF), or perhaps start with the assumption that the dough will move very slowly for a long fermentation time (if low PFF).

Why don't you include the sourdough starter flour and water in the calculations?

This is an important point and something I've struggled with here at The Perfect Loaf (and in my baking in general) for years: should I include the sourdough starter flour and water in my overall calculations? For a formula to be wholly correct and account for all flour and water, the flour and water in the starter should be included. However, I typically do not include them for clarity and ease of use. Instead, I treat the starter as a single, cohesive unit.

I see this as a tradeoff between complete correctness and clarity. For example, if I included my starter in my formulas here, you'd always see rye flour as an ingredient (because it's in a tiny percentage of my sourdough starter feeds). Including that bit of flour would be the correct thing, but it means strange percentages for all the other ingredients, which will lead to questions and confusion.

In the end-and maybe just for now!-I've settled on not including the starter flour and water in my calculations. This is because, in many of my formulas, my starter is included in such a small percentage that the impact of that flour and water on the total formula is minimal.

If you're a TPL Member, you'll notice in my baking spreadsheets that I offer the option to include your sourdough starter in the calculations for a dough formula if you wish to be 100% correct.

Explaining The Perfect Loaf Tables and Charts

I know there are many tables on this website, but I think it is the most concise and clear way to convey a bread formula. Here at The Perfect Loaf, I like to split up a bread formula into four tables: Vitals, Total Formula, Levain Build, and Dough Mix.

The Total Formula table (see earlier in this post) is a snapshot of the entire formula, taking the levain into account: the total flour required, the total liquid, total fats, total sugars, and so on. In addition, the TF table also shows the baker's percentages for everything so you can get a sense of the recipe outright (as I discussed at the beginning of this post).

The Levain Build table (see earlier in this post) is what you need to mix to make the levain-the off-shoot of your sourdough starter (see my post here on the differences between a sourdough starter and levain) for a single bake-for the recipe. The levain is usually some percentage of sourdough starter, some flour, and some water that's made some number of hours before the rest of the recipe begins.

Finally, the Dough Mix table is what you need when you get to your counter and start combining ingredients. This table doesn't have baker's percentages because, at this point, you just need the weights of everything to know what to add to your mixing bowl.

Why Are the Ingredient Weights Here Rarely Round Numbers?

You might have already figured out the answer to this by now, but it's worth stating: almost every one of the recipes you see here will have strange ingredient weights that aren't usually round numbers. For example, in the Simple Weekend recipe used above the high protein bread flour is 805.8g, not 800g. Why?

When making a formula, I work on the overall baker's percentages. So, I might say to myself, "I want this recipe to have 80% bread flour, 20% whole wheat flour, 76% water, ..." Forming an image of the end loaf in my mind through numbers. And this goes back to that instinctual feel for percentages and how they will eventually translate into bread dough.

In essence, I know for me a 76% hydration dough is low to moderate hydration, and it's also a manageable dough for many. Finally, when I use those percentages and set the total dough yield to be 1,800g (to make two beautiful boules), the math spits out the actual weights I need for each ingredient to satisfy the percentage concerning the total yield. And because I'm focusing on working in percentages (usually round), the actual weights can be whatever the math says they should be-and generally not round.

What's next?

And there you have it, my (hopefully clear and not tooscary) introduction to baker's percentages. If things are still unclear, or I've missed something here, please comment below, and I'll get back to you with an explanation. I'd also love to hear if you have any tricks or suggestions on how you work in baker's percentages (besides just using a spreadsheet!)-there's always more to learn and, dare I say, more fun!

If you're looking for more technical aspects of baking, look at my post on the importance of dough temperature and why it's so important in baking.

Happy baking!

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Introduction to Baker's Percentages | The Perfect Loaf

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In this introduction to baker's percentages and baker's math, learn to understand bread baking formulas and how to quickly scale up and down a recipe.

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Artisan Sourdough Shaping Technique | Proof Bread