I really need help with bakers percentage

dmsnyder just did a great tutorial and that was followed with some great discussions.  Find it here   http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28464/bakers-math-tutorial

Re : How would it look ?

...like this.

Here is your recipe in bakers percent.

I find writing it out in decimals is easiest, so:

 100 % is written as 1.00

      2% is written as 0.02 etc

The number here that is of interest to you is:

1.8155 - which is all your ingredients as percent, added together.

Take the total amount of dough that you want, which in your case is 2180 gm.

Divide by 1.8155...and you get...1200 gm...which is your total flour

See how this works?

Now you know that to make 2180 gm of dough, you will need 1200 gm of flour.

(Your preferment is 450 gm so: 450 gm divided by 1200 = 0.375 or 37.5 %)

Now that you have the flour amount needed, everything else gets multiplied by flour.

So, flax seed = 1200 gm flour X .038 = 45.6 or 46 gm.

(Just so it’s clear – how did you get .038 for flax?

Well, your recipe calls for 45 gm flax, so 45 divided by flour (1200) = .0375 and so on.)

Water is 0.65 X 1200 flour = 780

Salt is 0.02 X 1200 flour = 24 gm

(your salt percentage number is actually  0.0208 to give you 25 gm, but you see the pattern)

• The second recipe is the one you asked for and calls for 2600 gm dough

You already have a percent from the original recipe – 1.8155

So, 2600 divided by 1.8155 = 1432 g flour.

Now, multiply the rest of your ingredients X the flour and the amounts will total

2600 gm dough.

Whole wheat = 1430 X 0.375 = 536 gm

Flax = .038 X 1430 = 54 gm and so on

Bakers percent is confusing, but since you like baking... you’ll get it.

Hope this is of help.

H

Hey BreadBasket,

This is a good exercise on calculating baker's percentage.

I may be able to help you if you tell me what rate of hydration you are aiming at!! Hydration plays a key role in determining the rest of ingredients calculated for within the 2600gr. batch you are talking about. 

Initially i made my home work in this and came up with hydration around 68%. Is that what you are looking for? Please let me know!

Cheers,

Izzat

Hi bread basket,

I see that your final dough hydration as per the amount that you gave is 65%. Given this fact i made my calculations and came up with the same amounts that Yippee made in his/her answer, and you can adopt them in your 2600 gr. batch.

Izzat

Hi Bread Basket,

The other day DNSynder posted this easy to understand explanation on bread maths and percentages on this TFL site.

Go to      http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28464/bakers-math-tutorial.

I found it interesting and so easy that even a simpleton like myself could understand it.

Hope this helps..................Peter. 

By The Way...........I am not calling you simple...........just myself.........OK....LOL.............P

BB

 I am following your original recipe:

Preferment :

450 gr WW

Water 580

 Total water that you use is:

 580 for preferment, plus 200 in your final dough = 780 ml

So; 580 divided by total water 780 = 0.7436, or 74%

What your recipe is telling me is that you use 74% of your total water  in your preferment.

For the second recipe which you had asked for to give a  greater final dough amount;

your water under the “total recipe” column is 930 gm.

Now, you say that you use 74% of your water for preferment...

Total water 930 X 0.7436 = 691 ml (or gm)

Myself, when I make grain breads, I  multiply my preferment  grains

by 1.25 and that’s my water which I then subtract from final recipe.

Using this as an example -  in the second recipe, your water for preferment would be:

flour = 536 X 1.25 = 670; not too far off from what you have (690)

Fun, yes?

H

BB

Most places have a separate recipe book for the mother culture and sour, as it is

made and refreshed daily for numerous doughs.

This is how I would write out your SD recipe so that it is... simple to follow:

Your salt is almost 2 ½ % which sounds right as we’re taking the flour that is in your sour into consideration.

You already know how much you add - ratio wise - to make your starter and refresh, so you can just build up on that if you want to make more sourdough, but your percentage for this recipe will stay the same: 0.3333

I assume your 6-60-60- is your 6 gm of mother; 60 flour and 60 water?

Second feed is 100 gm taken from first, then add another 100 flour and 100 water

From this, you use 274 gm as your sourdough which is added to final dough

and of what’s left over, 6 gm is used to make a new sour starter and the rest discarded – yes?

Now, if you do want to write this out with feed column 1 and 2; it might look like this...

Way too complicated.

If you look at the Final Dough column, the numbers end up being the same for both recipe examples.

Your feed 1 and 2 had some extra starter left over but I changed it for this example (using your ratios)

so that we get a final total of 274 starter.

 Tell the truth, now my head is in a knot doing it like this.

H

When ever I make bread I record all of the flour used wherever and all of the water used and adjust for the hydration I want. I count all liquids as water and all flours and seeds as flour. Flour always equals 100%.

If five pounds of flour makes six loaves and for the next batch I want eight loaves, Each loaf uses 5/6 pounds or 13.3 ounces so I need 8x13.3 ounces of flour for the new batch or 6.66 pounds or six pounds 11 ounces.

BB

I’m glad that you now “get it” when it comes to bakers percent.

Once people understand, they wonder what all the fuss was about.

Still, I know a few bakers that are not familiar with BP yet seem to manage

their daily bread production just fine.

H

Check out this blog for some outline if you like.  

http://allthingswheat.com/2012/07/01/start-at-the-beginning-bakers-percentages/