BakerybenchProduction
Baguette Formula in Baker's Percent: From 1 kg to 25 kg of Flour
A baguette dough has only four ingredients, which makes it the best formula to learn scaling with. This page gives the formula in baker's percent, the gram weights for three batch sizes, and the maths so you can check every number by hand.
The formula
| Ingredient | Baker's % | Per 500 g flour |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat flour (type 550 or bread flour) | 100 % | 500 g |
| Water | 80 % | 400 g |
| Salt | 3 % | 15 g |
| Dry yeast | 0.6 % | 3 g |
| Total | 183.6 % | 918 g |
If you work with fresh yeast instead of dry yeast, use 2 % (10 g per 500 g flour). The dry yeast weighs about one third of the fresh yeast.
The hydration of this dough is 80 % (water ÷ flour × 100). That is a wet dough for a lean bread. The best flour for it is a French baguette flour, bought directly to specification.
Scaled to bakery batches
| Ingredient | 1 kg flour | 10 kg flour | 25 kg flour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1,000 g | 10,000 g | 25,000 g |
| Water | 800 g | 8,000 g | 20,000 g |
| Salt | 30 g | 300 g | 750 g |
| Dry yeast | 6 g | 60 g | 150 g |
| Fresh yeast (alternative) | 20 g | 200 g | 500 g |
| Dough | 1,836 g | 18,360 g | 45,900 g |
How the numbers are calculated
- Add the percentages. 100 + 80 + 3 + 0.6 = 183.6 %. Total dough weight is always flour weight × 1.836.
- From the dough you want to the flour you need. Flour = dough weight ÷ 1.836. For 60 baguettes of 350 g you need 21,000 g of dough, so 21,000 ÷ 1.836 = 11,438 g of flour.
- From the flour to each ingredient. Ingredient = flour × percent ÷ 100. With 11,438 g of flour: water 9,150 g, salt 343 g, dry yeast 69 g.
- Pieces from a batch. 10 kg of flour makes 18,360 g of dough. At 250 g per piece that is 73 pieces (73.4 rounded down).
You can do the same with the baker's percentage calculator: enter 100, 80, 3 and 0.6 and tick flour and water.
Decoration
Decoration is part of the formula. The recipe is only complete with the dusting and the finish, so they belong in the recipe and in the costing. They are not part of the dough weight or the baker's percent above, and in many bakeries they are forgotten in the costing.
- Flour: if at all, the dough pieces are rolled very lightly in flour during shaping. For a 300 g baguette this is about 15 g of flour, about 5 % of the baked weight. This flour is counted as ordinary flour with its normal moisture of about 15 %, and it does not lose water in the oven, so it is added to the weight of the dough piece.
- Dough piece weight: about 353 g of dough for a 300 g baguette (see the weight note under "In the bakery") plus about 15 g of flour gives about 368 g, so scale about 370 g.
- Cuts: usually 3 decorative cuts on the baguette, some bakers make 4. They are cut just before the baguettes go into the oven.
In the bakery
- Dough temperature: handle the dough like bread rolls, at about 20 °C, and within 20 to 25 °C by choosing the water temperature. If it is too hot, replace part of the water with ice.
- Mixing: mix well. The time depends on the mixing tools; as a guide, 2 minutes slow and 8 minutes fast.
- Rest and shaping: rest the dough for 15 minutes, pre-shape, rest the dough pieces for 30 minutes (intermediate proof), then shape finally.
- Proof: about 45 minutes.
- Baking: hotter than rolls, starting at 290 °C and falling to 260 to 280 °C, with plenty of steam, for 25 to 30 minutes. Steam routine: give steam in the first minute, then pull the draft and let the steam escape. The rest of the baking time runs without steam. This applies to rolls and breads alike.
- Weight: baking loss is about 15 %. Baked weight is 300 to 500 g depending on the bakery. A dough piece is baked weight ÷ 0.85, which is about 353 g for a 300 g baguette and about 588 g for a 500 g baguette. If the dough pieces are rolled in flour, add the flour (see Decoration).
- Cooling: let the baked goods cool a little before you handle, pack or (for pan breads) tip them out of the tin. The starch network is not yet stable while the crumb is hot, and hot breads can collapse.
Things to watch
- The weight of a baked baguette is lower than the weight of the dough piece, because water evaporates in the oven. Scale dough pieces heavier than the weight you want to sell.
- Round salt and yeast on a scale with a suitable resolution. At 25 kg of flour, 1 g of salt is only 0.004 %, but at 1 kg of flour it is 0.1 %.
- The water temperature is what you adjust to reach the dough temperature. The percentages stay the same.
- Ear that does not look right along the cuts: dough too firm or too young, surface too wet before cutting, proof too full or too long, or too much steam. Keep the dough softer, let the pieces skin over slightly before cutting, load a little earlier and give enough pre-steam with less main steam.
- Holes in the crumb: cuts too shallow or proof too short. Cut deeper and give a little more proof.