Sourdough Dough Weight Calculator
Scale any sourdough formula to your banneton or loaf pan so your final shape proofs and bakes correctly. This calculator gives you exact ingredient targets from dough weight, hydration, and inoculation.
How to Use This Calculator
- Pick your target total dough weight.
- Set hydration and inoculation.
- Use the net ingredient amounts for direct mixing.
[sc_faq source=”dough-weight-faq.json” title=”Frequently Asked Questions”]
Why Dough Weight Matters for Sourdough
Every banneton, loaf pan, and Dutch oven has an ideal dough weight range. Too little dough and your loaf won’t fill the shape, producing a flat result. Too much and it overflows during proofing. Getting the weight right means every loaf fills its container properly and bakes with the right crust-to-crumb ratio.
Most oval bannetons are designed for 800–900g of dough. Round bannetons typically fit 700–850g. A standard 9×5 loaf pan works best with 900–1000g. This calculator takes the guesswork out by scaling your exact formula to hit any target weight.
How to Scale a Recipe Using Baker’s Percentages
All sourdough recipes are expressions of baker’s percentages, where every ingredient is a percentage of total flour weight. Flour is always 100%, and everything else — water, salt, starter — is expressed relative to that. To scale a recipe up or down, you change the total flour weight and recalculate proportionally.
This calculator does that automatically. Enter your target dough weight and the recipe’s original yield, and it scales every ingredient to match. It’s especially useful when you want to bake two loaves instead of one, or when adapting a recipe to a different banneton size.
Dough Weight vs. Finished Loaf Weight
Dough loses 15–20% of its weight during baking as moisture evaporates. A loaf that goes in at 900g will come out closer to 720–765g. Keep this in mind when a recipe lists a “baked loaf weight” rather than a “dough weight.”
The rule of thumb: target a pre-bake dough weight about 20% higher than your desired finished loaf weight. If your goal is a 750g finished loaf, aim for roughly 900g of dough before it goes in the oven.