Production

Wheat Sourdough Rolls Formula in Baker's Percent: Single Rolls from a Two-Stage Sourdough

By Robert Roessler, Food Scientist · Published 14 November 2026

These rolls are made from a wheat sourdough, mostly wheat flour and a little rye, and are baked as single rolls. The home recipe splits the flour and water over a pre-dough and a main dough. For production you need one overall formula, so this page adds everything together and shows the maths.

The formula

The overall formula adds the sourdough pre-dough to the main dough. The flour is 240 g of wheat flour (type 550), 200 g of wheat flour type 1050 (100 g in the pre-dough and 100 g in the main dough), 60 g of rye flour (type 610) and 5 g from the starter, 505 g in total. As a share of the flour that is 47.5 % type 550, 39.6 % type 1050, 11.9 % rye and 1.0 % from the starter. Water is 70 g in the pre-dough, 250 g in the main dough and 5 g from the starter, 325 g in total. Hydration is water ÷ flour × 100 = 325 ÷ 505 = 64.4 %. With 12 g of salt and 3 g of fresh yeast the dough weighs 845 g.

Scaled to bakery batches

How the numbers are calculated

1. Add the percentages. 100 + 64.4 + 2.4 + 0.6 = 167.4 %. Total dough weight is always flour weight × 1.674.
2. From the dough you want to the flour you need. Flour = dough weight ÷ 1.674. For 10 rolls of 84 g you need 840 g of dough, so 840 ÷ 1.674 = 502 g of flour.
3. From the flour to each ingredient. Ingredient = flour × percent ÷ 100. With 502 g of flour: water 323 g, salt 12 g, fresh yeast 3 g.
4. Pieces from a batch. 10 kg of flour makes 16,740 g of dough. At 84 g per piece that is 199 pieces.

You can do the same with the baker's percentage calculator: enter the percentages above and tick flour and liquid.

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.

• Toppings: the plain wheat roll is normally made without any topping. In Germany the usual variants are the Kaiser roll topped with coarse salt (compacted hail salt, German "Hagelsalz") and rolls with poppy seed or sesame.
• No spraying: wheat rolls like this one are not sprayed with water. Spraying is done on rustic dark rye rolls, and then after baking, because spraying before baking gives a weaker shine.

In the bakery

• Sourdough: a simple wheat pre-dough in two stages. The first stage is flour, water and starter and ripens for about 12 hours. Then flour and water are added and the second stage ripens for another 12 hours. The first stage is usually made at TA 200 and the second at TA 180. The dough must stay machine-friendly.
• Cooling the sourdough: cooling is necessary, with counter-cooling at about 18 to 20 °C. Without counter-cooling, make the first stage a little less wet, at TA 190, which gives you more safety.
• Mixing water: there is no fixed water temperature. It depends on the flour temperature, because the flour comes from an outside silo, so set it in the control to reach the target dough temperature. It is specific to each plant.
• Dough temperature and mixing: a dough temperature of 22 °C. In a Diosna mixer, 2 minutes slow and 8 minutes fast, depending on the flour. In summer, replace part of the water with ice if the temperature cannot be reached otherwise. Use only crushed, slightly crumbly flake ice, never hard ice, which damages the dough structure and the gluten network.
• Rest and proof: no bench rest for single rolls. Tip the dough out and process it straight away. The proof of the dough pieces is usually 45 minutes. Proofing in the cooler overnight at 6 °C for 12 to 15 hours is also common and gives better quality. The pieces can also go through the freezer and then the cooler. The advantage is a stock for emergencies, the disadvantage is higher energy use. After cooling, let the rolls stiffen (rest) for at least 15 minutes before they go into the oven. This also applies after the direct 45-minute proof. If the staff only load them after 30 minutes, that is fine too.
• Baking: bake at 250 °C, falling to 230 °C, with plenty of steam so that the rolls open well. 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.
• Piece weight and baking loss: the baked roll should weigh 70 g. With a baking loss of 15 to 17 % the dough piece has to weigh about 84 g (70 ÷ 0.83 = 84). A piece of 82 g would give 70 g at 15 % loss, one of 84 g gives 70 g at 17 % loss. The dough in the table makes 10 pieces of this size.
• Cooling: let the rolls cool a little before you handle or pack them. The starch network is not yet stable while the crumb is hot.

Things to watch

• TA is the dough yield: flour plus water divided by flour, × 100. TA 200 means equal parts flour and water, which is a hydration of 100 %. TA 180 means 80 parts of water to 100 parts of flour.
• The home recipe uses 10 g of sourdough. This page counts it as a starter with 100 % hydration, so it adds 5 g of flour and 5 g of water. In the bakery the two-stage sourdough described above takes its place.
• The home recipe makes wreaths of six rolls. This page treats them as single rolls. The recipe says 12 pieces of about 75 g, which would be 900 g, but the dough weighs only 845 g. This page uses dough pieces of 84 g, so the dough makes 10 pieces, and a baked roll of 70 g.
• Rye flour for dusting the rolls before baking is not part of the dough formula.
• Weigh salt and yeast on a scale with a suitable resolution, especially for small batches.
• Most common faults in the bakery: dough too warm; waited too long; proof too long, so the pieces over-proof; dough pieces handled again after tipping and collapsing; wrong oven temperature; steam forgotten; baked too long, so the rolls are dry or too dark; rolls handled straight after baking.
• Dull surface: dough too warm, trays or proofing carriers dusted too heavily, a dry proof, or too little steam. Keep the dough cooler, dust less, raise the humidity in the proof and give enough steam.
• Hollow, pulled-in bottom: proof too full or baking temperature too low, especially when baking on paper or foil. Load a little earlier and raise the temperature.
• After the cooler or the freezer: uneven browning and dry spots come from partial drying in storage, dark browning from storage that is too warm or too long, and a loose crust from too thick a crust or too long in the freezer. Store covered and as short as possible.

Sources

• King Arthur Baking: Baker's Percentage (professional reference)
• BAKERpedia: Baker's Percent
• Wissensforum Backwaren: Fehler bei Brot und Kleingebäck und deren Beseitigung (Detlef Reineke, 3rd edition 2009)

Information current as of 14 November 2026. The formula is a starting point and needs your own trials with your flour, mixer and oven.