Sourdough Schedule Planner
Enter the clock time you want fresh sourdough and this planner works backward through feed, autolyse, mix, bulk ferment, shape, an optional overnight cold retard, and bake, giving each stage a real start time.
Built by the AbraCalc team
How to play
- Set the target bake time — the moment you want the loaf going into the oven.
- Enter how long each stage takes: feeding the starter, autolyse, mixing, bulk ferment, and shaping.
- Toggle on cold retard if you're doing an overnight fridge rest, and set its length plus a short warm-up time.
- Click Build schedule to see every stage's clock time counting backward from your bake time, ready to print or copy.
Sourdough is easy to plan badly: guess wrong and you're either waiting around for dough that isn't ready or shaping loaves at midnight. This planner flips the problem around. Type in the clock time you actually want warm bread, set how long you expect each stage to take, and it works backward through feeding the starter, autolyse, mixing, bulk fermentation with folds, shaping, an optional overnight cold retard, and final proof, so every stage lands on a real clock time that adds up exactly to your bake. Toggle the cold retard on for an overnight fridge rest and the schedule automatically shifts shaping to the evening before and adds a short warm-up instead of a long room-temp proof. Nothing you type is uploaded or saved anywhere; every calculation runs right in your browser. Print the finished timeline or copy it as text to keep next to your mixing bowl.
Frequently asked questions
- How does the backward math work?
- The planner starts at your target bake time and subtracts each stage's length in order, from final proof back through shaping, bulk ferment, mixing, autolyse, and starter feeding, so the very first stage's start time plus every stage length adds up exactly to your bake time.
- What happens when a stage falls on the previous day?
- Each stage is labeled with whether it falls on the same day as your bake or a day (or more) before it, so an early-morning bake with a long overnight cold retard clearly shows which steps happen the evening before.
- Does turning on cold retard change the schedule structure?
- Yes. With cold retard on, shaped dough goes straight into the fridge overnight and the final stage before baking becomes a short room-temperature warm-up instead of a full final proof, and the whole timeline recalculates automatically.