Pizza Today - July 2016 - 28

Q: I see that most of the dough
recipes that you talk about are in
percent rather than in weights. How
do I go about converting the percentages into ingredient weights?
A: I get this question asked quite
frequently so it never hurts to review it
once again.
The easiest way to look at a dough
is to look at it as a dough formulation
based on baker's percent. In doing so, the
weight of each ingredient is expressed as
a percentage of the weight of the total
flour in the dough. So if a dough were
made with 25 pounds of flour and the
salt level was given as 1.75 percent, the
weight of the salt would be 1.75 percent
of 25 pounds (or 0.4375 pounds, which is
seven ounces). Let's go through a typical
dough formulation based on percentages
and convert it to ingredient weights:

Flour: 100 percent
Salt: 1.75 percent
Sugar: 2 percent

2 8 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / J U LY 2 0 1 6

Olive oil: 1.5 percent
Instant dry yeast (IDY): 0.375 percent
Water: 58 percent
1) Decide how much flour you want
to use when making your dough. The
amount of flour that you elect to use is
always equal to 100 percent in the dough
formulation. Remember that the ingredient weights will always be given in the
same weight units (pounds, ounces,
kilograms, grams, etc.) that you show the
flour weight in.
2) Let's say that you opted to use
40 pounds of flour in your dough:
Flour: 100 percent = 40 pounds.
3) For the salt weight, using your
calculator, enter the flour weight (40) and
then press "X". Enter 1.75 and then press
the "%" key. Read the weight of salt in the
display window. 0.7 pounds of salt is the
correct answer. If you need to change this
to ounces, just multiply 0.7 X 16 = 11.2.
4) For the sugar weight, enter 40 then
press "X" and enter 2. Press the "%" key

and read 0.8 pounds in the display
window. 0.8 X 16 = 12.8 ounces.
5) For the olive oil weight enter 40
then press "X" and enter 1.5 then press
the "%" key and read 0.6 pounds in the
display window. 0.6 X 16 = 9.6 ounces.
6) For the instant dry yeast, enter
40 X 0.375 then press the "%" key and
read 0.15 pounds in the display window. 0.15 X 16 = 2.4 ounces.
7) For the water weight, enter 40 x
58 then press the "%" key and read
23.2 pounds in the display window.
This could also be read as 23 pounds
plus (0.2 x 16 = 3.2 ounces) or a total of
23 pounds and 3.2 ounces.
The advantage of showing a dough
formula in baker's percent is that it
allows the dough to be made using
any desired flour weight and you can
manipulate the size of the dough up or
down while always keeping the dough
ingredients in correct balance. Keep
in mind though that when working in
baker's percent only weight units can
be used. It will not work with volumetric measures such as cups, teaspoons, etc. It also provides for a very
fast and easy way to look at any dough
formula to see if any ingredients are
used at an incorrect level for the type
of dough/crust being made.
You can also easily convert any
existing dough formula into baker's
percent by following these easy steps.
1) Flour is always equal to 100
percent.
2) Divide the weight of the ingredient by the weight of the flour and
multiply by 100 to find the baker's
percent for any ingredient.
Example: Assume that we are
using 40 pounds of flour and want to
increase the instant dry yeast level to
3.25 ounces. First change 40 pounds
to ounces by multiplying by 16 =
640 ounces then divide 3.25 by 640
= 0.0050781 X 100 = 0.50 percent
(rounded off from 0.50781).
3) Do this for each ingredient and
you will have your dough formula
shown in baker's percent.
In some cases I've seen what I

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Pizza Today - July 2016

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