What is baker's percentage?

Baker's percentage expresses every ingredient as a percentage of the total flour weight. Flour is always 100%. Water at 65% means 650 g for 1000 g of flour. This makes recipes scale perfectly to any batch size.

What is the ideal coffee-to-water ratio?

The Specialty Coffee Association Golden Cup standard recommends 1:16 to 1:18 (coffee to water by weight). For pour-over: 1:16. For French press: 1:15. For espresso: 1:2 (coffee to liquid output).

Can I scale any recipe up or down?

Most recipes scale linearly for ingredients, but baking time, pan size, and leavening agents may need adjustment for major scaling. Doubling a cake recipe rarely doubles the cooking time — use the scaled time as a starting point and check doneness.

Food & Cooking Tools — 5 Free Calculators

Why these tools exist

Cooking improvises. Baking calculates. Baker's percentages, hydration adjustments, levain contributions, and yeast conversions all involve arithmetic that's tedious to do by hand and easy to get wrong. These calculators handle the math instantly so you can focus on technique.

Which calculator for which question

🍕Pizza Dough Calculator — Baker's % for hydration, salt, and yeast — Neapolitan, New York, Detroit, Focaccia.
🍞Sourdough Hydration Calculator — Starter-adjusted baker's % — accounts for flour and water in your levain.
👨‍🍳Recipe Scaler — Scale any recipe up or down by number of servings — all ingredients update instantly.
☕Coffee-to-Water Ratio — Precise ratios for V60, AeroPress, French Press, Espresso, and Cold Brew.
🧪Yeast Conversion Calculator — Convert fresh, active dry, and instant yeast — grams and teaspoons.

Baker's percentage: the one concept to know

In baker's math, flour is always 100% and every other ingredient is expressed as a percentage of flour weight. This makes recipes scale-invariant and lets you compare formulas at a glance. 70% hydration always means 70 g water per 100 g flour — whether you're making a single loaf or 50.

The pizza dough and sourdough calculators both use baker's percentages. The sourdough version adds a layer of complexity: the levain itself contains flour and water that must be subtracted from your main dough quantities to hit the target hydration precisely.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a kitchen scale for baking?

Yes, strongly recommended. A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 120 g to 160 g depending on how it's measured — a 30% variation that can completely change the texture of a cake. A scale that measures to 1-gram precision is the single most impactful tool you can add to your kitchen.

What is the difference between fresh and dry yeast?

Fresh yeast contains about 70% water and is highly perishable. Dry yeast (active dry or instant) has been dehydrated and lasts much longer. You need less dry yeast for the same leavening effect — roughly 0.35 g of active dry for every 1 g of fresh.

How do I adjust my coffee ratio if it tastes bitter?

First try adjusting grind (coarser) and temperature (lower, ~90 °C). If it's still bitter after those adjustments, increase the water ratio (e.g., from 1:15 to 1:17). Bitterness is usually over-extraction caused by too fine a grind or too hot water.

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By Bam's Thinkery — Updated May 2, 2026