Production

Rye-Wheat Sourdough Bread Formula in Baker's Percent

By Robert Roessler, Food Scientist · Published 14 November 2026

This bread uses a rye sourdough stage and a little yeast. The home recipe lists the sourdough stage and the main dough separately. For production you need one overall formula, so this page adds both stages together and shows the maths.

The formula

The flour is made of 76.9 % wheat flour (type 550) and 23.1 % rye flour, including the rye flour in the starter. The overall formula adds the sourdough stage and the main dough: 650 g flour, 430 g water, 12 g salt, 5 g fresh yeast and about 7 g honey, a dough of 1,104 g. Hydration is water ÷ flour × 100 = 430 ÷ 650 = 66 %.

Scaled to bakery batches

How the numbers are calculated

1. Add the percentages. 100 + 66.2 + 1.8 + 0.8 + 1.1 = 169.9 %. Total dough weight is always flour weight × 1.699.
2. From the dough you want to the flour you need. Flour = dough weight ÷ 1.699. For 40 loaves of 500 g you need 20,000 g of dough, so 20,000 ÷ 1.699 = 11,772 g of flour.
3. From the flour to each ingredient. Ingredient = flour × percent ÷ 100. With 11,772 g of flour: water 7,793 g, salt 212 g, fresh yeast 94 g, honey 129 g.
4. Pieces from a batch. 10 kg of flour makes 16,990 g of dough. At 500 g per piece that is 33 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.

• Proofing basket: rye and wheat breads normally go into a proofing basket, with the seam up or the seam down. The basket is dusted beforehand with flour, or with a special flour that stops the dough sticking. The share of flour is about the same as for the baguette, so scale it to the loaf size.
• Shiny surface: if the loaf should shine, dust less flour and brush or spray the loaf with water before baking. The flour disappears and the surface shines. No decoration is visible then.
• Cuts: most breads get two decorative cuts across the top, made just before loading. Every bakery does this differently.
• Seam: the loaf has a seam where it was closed. With the seam on top, the loaf splits open there in the oven, which gives the typical tear, and a round loaf opens in a classic rustic way. With the seam at the bottom there should be no tear. If it tears anyway, the loaf was loaded under-proofed: it has too much power, the surface is already set and then it tears.
• Spraying after baking: breads that come out of the oven with a pale surface should be sprayed with water at once, very early, as soon as they leave the oven. Spraying later is a serious fault: the water soaks back into the loaf and the crisp crust turns soft.

In the bakery

• Sourdough: classic three-stage process at room temperature, with dough yields (TA) of about 210, 200 and 180. The first stage ripens for about 24 hours, the second for about 12 hours or longer, the third is the processing stage and takes about 9 hours until it is ready to use. Mixing water for the stages is 27 to 29 °C.
• Dough temperature and mixing: rye and dark breads at 29 °C dough temperature. In a Diosna mixer, 2 minutes slow and 7 minutes fast. Times depend on the machine and the flour.
• Rest and swelling: a bench rest of 30 to 45 minutes. Dark doughs also need about 30 minutes for the gluten and pentosans to swell. Pale breads can rest up to 3 hours, but then with much less yeast.
• Proof: the best loaves come from shaped pieces ripened in the cooler overnight or over the day, and they go into the oven straight from the cooler. Without cooling, about 1 hour at room temperature, about 45 minutes in a proofer. Room-temperature proof can take 1 hour 20 minutes or longer, shorter in summer and longer in winter, so check every batch.
• Baking: start at about 290 °C and let the temperature fall to about 270 °C. A large oven takes 5 to 7 litres of steam per load, less if the loaves are dusted with flour. A 300 g loaf bakes in about 45 minutes, a 1 kg loaf in about 1 hour, a loaf over 3 kg needs at least 80 minutes. Set the programme in your own oven and follow it over time, because ovens settle in slowly. 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.
• Dough weight: a 1,000 g baked loaf needs 1,160 to 1,200 g of dough, a baking loss of about 14 to 17 %.
• 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 loaf 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.
• Weigh salt and yeast on a scale with a suitable resolution, especially for small batches.
• The sourdough starter contains flour and water too. This page assumes a starter with 100 % hydration (equal parts flour and water by weight) and counts its flour and water in the totals. If your starter is stiffer or wetter, the hydration changes.
• Without the starter's water, the hydration of this dough is 63 %. With it, 66 %. Always say which way you count.
• Honey is counted as 7 g per teaspoon. Weigh it in production instead.
• Most common faults in the bakery: weighing errors; sourdough not ripe or over-ripe; mixing times not kept; wrong water temperature, so the dough temperature is wrong; tipped too early, rest time not kept; water not adjusted to a changing flour quality, so the dough yield is too high and the dough cannot be processed.
• Proof too long: over-proofed loaves spread flat. Proof too short: the loaves rise but tear.
• Wrong baking programme: loaves turn too dark, too dry or stay small. Also check the loader, because dough pieces that fall on the floor or a machine that fouls half a batch are real losses.
• Split seam: dough too firm or warm, too much flour worked into the seam or too little proof. Use less flour, press the seam closed well and give a little more proof.
• Streaks in the crumb: dough too soft or warm, too much dusting flour worked in, or the surface skinned over during rest. Keep the dough firmer and cooler and protect the pieces from skinning.
• Blisters at the bottom: dough too young or too cold, or proof too warm and too humid. Let the surface dry a little before baking.
• Spraying with water too late after baking: the water soaks back in and the crisp crust turns soft. Spray right when the bread leaves the oven or not at all.

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.