---
title: "Glaze Batch Calculator with SG & Water | Ceramic Drift"
description: "Turn a percentage glaze recipe with additions into grams or ounces for any batch size, rescale it to 100, and work out specific gravity and water to add."
url: https://ceramicdrift.me/glaze-batch-calculator/
---

Grams or ounces, any batch

# Glaze batch calculator

Each base material's weight is its share of the base times the batch size, and additions such as colourants and opacifiers are percent on top of the 100. For a 1,000 g batch of Digitalfire's G2926B cone 6 clear with 10% opacifier, you weigh 166.2 g of nepheline syenite and 100 g of opacifier.

## How to batch a glaze recipe

Type the base recipe as it is printed, even if it doesn't add up to 100: the calculator scales it. Put colourants, opacifiers and other extras under additions, as percent of the base. Pick the batch size, and whether that size is the base alone or everything you will weigh.

- **Rescale to 100** rewrites the base so it totals exactly 100.00, which makes the recipe easier to compare and share.
- **Water:** Digitalfire says about equal weights of water and dry glaze give an SG of about 1.45. Start with a little less, mix, measure, then thin with the helper; you can add water but not take it out.
- **Typical targets** are starting points: potters mixing their own dipping glazes generally do best around 1.45, gelled dipping glazes around 1.43–1.45, and dipping-glaze instructions range from 1.4 for a five-second dip to 1.5 for one second.

**Dry glaze dust.** Clay and glaze powders contain crystalline silica, and the UK Health and Safety Executive warns that breathing the fine dust over time can cause silicosis, a serious lung disease that cannot be reversed. Its ceramics guidance: keep powder containers closed, avoid tipping and scooping clouds of dust, buy ready-mixed glaze where you can, and clean with a vacuum or wet methods rather than sweeping. Some colourants, such as lead, cobalt and cadmium compounds, need their own care.

**Free recipe e-books and first-order codes** from pottery suppliers are often handed out for an email address. A temporary inbox from [CleanTempMail](https://cleantempmail.com/) (no sign-up, emptied after three days) receives them without the newsletters that follow; download or use them straight away. Place the order itself with your real address, since you will want its receipt, delivery updates and any return.

## Sources

- Example recipe, the 10% opacifier for a white and the 90 water to 100 powder starting point: [Digitalfire, G2926B Cone 6 Whiteware/Porcelain transparent glaze](https://digitalfire.com/recipe/g2926b) (Tony Hansen), checked 2 November 2026.
- SG as weight ÷ volume, and the typical SG ranges: [Digitalfire, Specific gravity](https://digitalfire.com/glossary/specific+gravity). About 2,500 g of dry glaze in 2,500 g of water gives about 1.45: [Digitalfire, Glaze Mixing](https://digitalfire.com/glossary/glaze+mixing). The water formula follows from that definition, with water at 1 g per mL.
- Silica dust: [HSE, Silicosis: causes and risk controls](https://www.hse.gov.uk/lung-disease/silicosis.htm); [HSE, COSHH essentials in ceramics: Silica, CR1 Glaze and colour preparation](https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/cr1.pdf) (2019).
- 1 oz = 28.3495 g and 1 lb = 453.592 g: [NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8](https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-811/nist-guide-si-appendix-b-conversion-factors/nist-guide-si-appendix-b8).

## Questions

**How do I convert a glaze recipe to grams?**

Divide each base amount by the base total and multiply by the batch size. Additions are their percent of the batch size: 10% in a 1,000 g batch is 100 g on top.

**Are additions part of the 100?**

No. In a percentage recipe the base adds up to 100 and colourants or opacifiers are added on top, so 100 base plus 10 opacifier weighs 110 in all.

**How much water do I add to glaze?**

Start with a little under the dry weight in water, mix, then measure the SG and thin to your target. To bring 2,100 g of slurry from 1.48 to 1.45, add about 95 g of water.