Every other timing tool tells you how long fermentation takes. This one answers the question you actually have: when do I do each step? Set the time you’re starting, dial in your dough below, and Sourjoe lays out the whole bake on the clock — leaven, mix, bulk, shape, proof, bake and cool — so you can slide your start time around until nothing lands at 3 a.m.
The bulk and proof times come straight from Sourjoe’s calibrated Rise Time model (the same engine, unchanged). Everything else is an editable estimate you can tune to your own kitchen and pace.
the moment you begin preparation
Fine-tune step durations
Defaults suit most bakes. Adjust any that don’t match your kitchen.
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min
min
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hr
Bulk and proof come from the Rise Time calculator below and update automatically.
Your bake, on the clock
Enter your dough details in the Rise Time calculator below to build the schedule.
Dial in your dough below — every change reshapes the timeline above.
Dough details (Rise Time calculator)
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Rise Time Calculator
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Opened from the Bread Recipe Supercalculator: dough temperature, inoculation, hydration, salt, dough mass (the recipe’s total weight) and room temperature (from the Book of Sourjoe Settings) are being supplied, and are highlighted in green below. The estimate is the same one the Supercalculator shows. Open this calculator from the Calculator List to enter your own figures.
? Estimate bulk rise, proof, and total rise time from dough temperature, inoculation, hydration, and salt.
Temperature Units:
Parameter
Value
? Initial Mix Method
? Autolyse Time
hours
? Room Temperature
? Proofing Method
? Bulk Completed
%
? Fridge Temperature
? Dough Mass
? Dough Temperature
? Inoculation
%
? Dough Hydration
%
? Salt
%
? Bulk Time
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? Proof Time
--
? Total Rise Time
--
? TangMild (0)
? Tang Proof Time
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More...
Rise Time Estimate
What This Estimator Does
It predicts bulk, proof, and total rise time from four levers — dough temperature, inoculation (how much leaven relative to flour), hydration, and salt — measured against a reference bake. It is a field model, not a law of nature: a tunable starting point you calibrate to your own starter and kitchen.
The Four Levers
Lever
Direction
Why
Temperature
Warmer → faster
The strongest lever. Rate roughly doubles per ~10°C (the Q10 factor).
Inoculation
More leaven → faster
More active culture means more fermentation power per gram of flour.
Hydration
Wetter → slightly faster
Mobility helps enzyme and microbial activity, modestly.
Salt
More salt → slower
Salt restrains yeast and tightens gluten, damping the pace.
Initial Mix Method
The bulk clock is a fermentation clock — it starts when the leaven goes in. Under Fermentolyse that is the initial mix. Under Autolyse the flour and water rest first with no fermentation, so the autolyse rest is added to the total timeline, and during that rest the dough temperature drifts toward room temperature (an exponential relaxation with the tunable time constant below) — bulk and proof then run at the drifted temperature, not the mix temperature. The optional rate bonus (default 0 = off) lets you model the mild fermentation acceleration a completed autolyse gives via enzyme activity, if your bakes show it.
Proofing Method — the Fridge Retard
Under Ambient the proof runs at the ferment temperature, as it always has. Under Retard the shaped dough goes into the fridge at the end of bulk, and two things happen at once: the dough cools toward the fridge temperature (Newton cooling — a bigger dough mass cools more slowly, scaling with mass2/3, the surface-to-volume law), and it keeps fermenting at whatever rate its current temperature allows. The model treats proof as an accumulated fermentation dose: the ambient proof time is re-expressed as a required dose, and the dough banks that dose minute by minute along the cooling curve — quickly while still warm, then very slowly once cold.
Below 10 °C a separate cold-side Q10 takes over (default 3.5), because a straight Q10 of 2 overestimates fridge fermentation — sourdough cultures slow disproportionately in the cold. That disproportionate slowdown is also why a retard is forgiving: near the ready point the dough is banking dose so slowly that the same 10% over-proof margin that passes in minutes at room temperature takes hours in the fridge. The calculator reports both the ready time (100% of dose) and the edge of that forgiving window (110%). If the dose does not complete within 72 hours, your fridge is cold enough to effectively hold the dough, and the calculator says so rather than inventing a number.
Shape-and-Chill — the Book Method
Most published overnight methods do not retard a fully bulked dough — they shorten bulk on purpose, shape, and refrigerate, letting the remaining bulk and the whole proof finish slowly in the cold. That is what the 8–16 hour figures in the bread books really are: a deliberately under-proofed entry plus a wide fridge window plus flavour time. Shape-and-Chill models it directly: tell the calculator how far bulk had come when you shaped (Bulk Completed %, most books land around 70–85%), and the unbanked remainder of the bulk dose rides into the fridge on top of the proof dose. At 100% it is Retard exactly.
The Tang Slider
Rise and tang run on different clocks. The gas that proofs the loaf comes mostly from the yeasts, whose activity collapses in the cold; the acids that make it tangy come mostly from the bacteria, whose activity falls off far more gently. So fridge hours past the structural ready point add almost no rise but keep adding tang — which is the entire flavour argument for the long retard. The Tang slider turns that into a bake time: it is modeled as a second dose (the acid dose, with its own gentler Q10 pair below) integrated along the same cooling curve. Mild means bake at the structural ready point; higher settings ask for a multiple of the ready-point acid (up to ×2.5 at Very Tangy, tunable below) and are answered with a later recommended fridge time. The scale is deliberately relative — an absolute sourness scale would demand calibration nobody has — and a very tangy target can land past the forgiving window, in which case the calculator says so and names the trade: a slacker, more delicate dough, or a colder fridge.
The Model
FermentTempC = RoomTempC + (DoughTempC − RoomTempC) × e^(−AutolyseHours ÷ DriftTimeConstant)
(Autolyse only; under Fermentolyse, FermentTempC = DoughTempC)
AutolyseBoost = 1 + BoostPerHour × AutolyseHours
TemperatureRate = Q10 ^ ((FermentTempC − RefTempC) / 10)
InoculationRate = (Inoc / RefInoc) ^ InocExponent
SaltRate = 1 − SaltCoeff × (Salt − RefSalt)
HydrationRate = 1 + HydrationCoeff × (Hyd − RefHyd)
BulkHours = RefBulkHours ÷ (TempRate × BulkInocRate × SaltRate × HydrationRate × AutolyseBoost)
ProofHours = RefProofHours ÷ (TempRate × ProofInocRate × SaltRate × HydrationRate × AutolyseBoost)
Retard (fridge proof) only:
τ = RetardTimeConstant × (DoughMass ÷ 1000 g)^(2/3)
DoughTemp(t) = FridgeTempC + (FermentTempC − FridgeTempC) × e^(−t ÷ τ)
Rate(T) = Q10^((T − RefTempC)/10) for T ≥ 10 °C
= Q10^((10 − RefTempC)/10) × ColdQ10^((T − 10)/10) for T < 10 °C
ProofDose = RefProofHours ÷ (ProofInocRate × SaltRate × HydrationRate × AutolyseBoost)
ProofHours = the time t at which ∫ Rate(DoughTemp) dt reaches ProofDose
(forgiving window ends when the integral reaches 110% of ProofDose)
Shape-and-Chill only:
BulkHours = full-bulk hours × BulkCompleted%
FridgeDose = (1 − BulkCompleted%) × BulkDose + ProofDose
Tang (cold methods, slider > Mild):
AcidRate(T) = AcidQ10^((T − RefTempC)/10) for T ≥ 10 °C
= AcidQ10^((10 − RefTempC)/10) × AcidColdQ10^((T − 10)/10) for T < 10 °C
TangTarget = (1 + slider × (TangMax − 1)) × acid banked at the ready point
TangProofTime = the fridge time t at which ∫ AcidRate(DoughTemp) dt reaches TangTarget
TotalHours = AutolyseHours + BulkHours + ProofHours
Every constant is exposed below so you can tune the model to your bakes without it being a black box. The default reference point is 20°C, 20% inoculation, 65% hydration, 2% salt.
Model caution: this is not a fermentation law. Starter strength, flour mix, dough handling, and your chosen "done" point all move the real times. Calibrate against your own bakes.
Want to know why this works? The fermentation model behind this schedule — every constant, the temperature and inoculation math, the cold-retard curve — is derived and explained in The Book of Sourjoe — the interactive book these tools were built for.
