I’ve written about calculating ingredient amounts from the baker’s formula. But while I was lurking in a bread baking forum, I read a thread where the home baker wanted to know how much preferment they should use for the bread. A responder correctly showed them how to calculate the amount. And reading that, I had my own question: How much bread do you want to make?

Before I started my micro-bakery, like most home bakers, I’d just make a couple of boules or batards or a few baguettes and I had figured they’d get eaten anyway, so no big deal. But once I started baking at scale, I needed to know precisely how much I needed to make so I wouldn’t be short bread nor make too much and have a lot of waste. To be honest, I’d give my surplus away to friends and family, but as I got more into it, I had to keep an eye on my expenses, so I had to start employing some economics.

To that end, I created a very precise dough calculator which would tell me how much of each ingredient I would need to achieve a certain yield. That helped me immensely. But I also had to figure out what my yield needed to be. I couldn’t just arbitrarily say I’d need six loaves at 650gr each. I needed to know just how many loaves. And that was a little trickier.

When I bake for a shelter, as I’m doing this coming Tuesday, bread is merely a component of the meal. It would be one thing if I were just making garlic bread. I’d be less careful in my planning. But in this case, I’m making BBQ pulled pork sandwiches. So, not only do I have to calculate the bread, but I must also calculate how much meat I need! It can get complicated pretty fast!

But here’s what I know: I will be feeding forty residents and five workers. Given that, each sandwich will have two ounces of meat, and two ounces of coleslaw. I already barbecued the pork and made over six and a three-quarter pounds of pulled pork (just to be safe). Serving sizes will be about two ounces of meat and two ounces of coleslaw. Those will go on 4″ ciabatta. My ciabattas are 20″ long, so I will get five pieces from each loaf. To feed forty-five, I’ll need ten loaves of ciabatta, which will give me fifty pieces (a few always want seconds).

So given that I need ten loaves I now know how much I’ll need to bake. So, here’s my yield calculation:

# Loaves	10
Desired Loaf Weight	650g
Process Loss %	1%
Target Dough Weight	6565g

My formula for a straight-dough ciabatta is as follows:

Flour	100.00%
Water	80.00%
Salt	2.00%
Yeast	1.10%
Olive Oil	5.00%
Total %	188.10%

And based on that formula I will need the following ingredient amounts (in grams):

AP Flour	3490g
Water	2792g
Salt	70g
Yeast	38.39g
Olive Oil	175g
Total Yield	6565g

For most folks, stuff like this really isn’t that important or even relevant most of the time. But it’s still helpful to know how much you should make at times. For instance, if you’re planning a big party and want to serve bread as part of the food offerings, it’s a good idea to plan ahead. It helps keep the stress of preparation much more controllable!