The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Dough Calculator Formula

sonofYah's picture
sonofYah

Dough Calculator Formula

Some time ago I found a site that had a formula for calculating the ingredient weights for a recipe when you want a certain amount of finished dough. I can't seem to find it again. does anyone have any ideas.

Gordon

KazaKhan's picture
KazaKhan

Ok, we'll use the following formula.



  • 100% -- Flour

  • 60% -- Water

  • 3% -- Yeast

  • 2% -- Salt

  • 1% -- Sugar

  • ----------------

  • 166% -- Total



First you divide the required weight of dough with the total percentage to get the amount of flour.

  • Required dough weight = 800 grams

  • 800 / 1.66 = 482 (Total Flour Weight)

  • 482 * 60% = 289

  • 482 * 3% = 14

  • 482 * 2% = 10

  • 482 * 1% = 5

I think that should get you going ;-)

andrew_l's picture
andrew_l

Or :
50 % wholemeal flour
50 % white bread flour
65 % water
30 % starter, refreshed
2 % salt

KazaKhan's picture
KazaKhan
sonofYah's picture
sonofYah

First of all let me say thanks to all who replied to my OP. Now I can put the info into my spreadsheet file.

As to the question of the weights of ingredients, i have found a very helpful file on the USDA site. It is a nutritional database. I use it often to convert recipes from cup measurements to weight measurements. It is a pretty good size file. But once downloaded, can be run from the desktop easily. The only drawback for some would be that it gives the weights in metric. This is not a problem for me as I have a metric capable scale. It is also nice information to have for making labels if you are selling the products.

I like to use grams and kilograms even for liquid measures. Makes it easier for me to scale a recipe.

Gordon

sadears's picture
sadears

Is there an easier way that won't fry my brain?  I have ADD and doing mental calculations will be the death of me.

Steph

tony's picture
tony

A year or more ago I made a spreadsheet to calculate bread formulas. E-mail me on tstavely@gmail.com and I'll send it to you as an attachment. It can work with either grams or ounces (or whatever weight unit you like) based on bakers' percentage, including non-flour ingredients such as raisins or nuts.

 

Tony

Noche's picture
Noche

If you are changing from cups to weight, couldn't you weigh what you normally would call a cup of flour and convert on that basis.

Mike Wurlitzer's picture
Mike Wurlitzer

Wow! Nice Calculator! Very easy to understand and use. Kudos!

treesparrow's picture
treesparrow

very cool. Please give my regards to your old windows laptop on your coffee table!

jvoris's picture
jvoris

There are zillions of calculators going the other direction and I was going to make myself a spreadsheet to figure out how to back into it when I stumbled across this. Exactly what I wanted, thanks!