Calculator
Baker’s percentages for rye
Bakers write recipes as percentages of the flour. It sounds fussy, but it makes any recipe easy to scale, and it makes two recipes easy to compare.
Rye dough calculator
Set the flour and the percentages; the weights for the evening sponge and the morning dough update as you type. The starter is counted as a separate seed and is not included in the hydration.
The calculator needs the page script; the worked example below shows the same numbers.
How the percentages work
The flour is always 100%. Everything else is weighed against it: 400 g of water to 500 g of flour is 80% hydration, 10 g of salt is 2%. Double the flour and every other weight doubles with it, without any arithmetic beyond the first line.
Hydration is the number to watch with rye. Wholemeal rye drinks a lot of water, and how much depends on the mill and even the year’s harvest. If a recipe gives you a paste like wet sand, raise the hydration by a few points; if it pours rather than slumps, lower it.
Worked example: the everyday loaf
| Ingredient | Weight | Baker’s % |
|---|---|---|
| Wholemeal rye flour | 500 g | 100% |
| Water | 400 g | 80% |
| Starter | 30 g | 6% |
| Salt | 10 g | 2% |
| Caraway | 3 g | 0.6% |
| Dough in total | 943 g | 188.6% |
Typical ranges
| What | Range |
|---|---|
| Hydration, all-rye loaf in a tin | 80–90% |
| Hydration, sepik and other wheat-heavy loaves | 65–75% |
| Flour in the evening sponge | 40–60% |
| Starter in the sponge | 5–10% |
| Salt | 1.6–2.2% |
| Caraway | 0.5–1% |
Scalded loaves count the scald water too, and can carry more of it, because the scalded flour holds water that raw flour cannot.