Desired dough temperature calculator
Fermentation runs on temperature, and the water is the one ingredient you can set. Tell the calculator how warm you want the mixed dough, how warm the room, the flour, and the levain are, and how you mix, and it says how warm the water should be.
How the arithmetic works
The mixed dough ends up at roughly the average of what goes into it, plus the heat that mixing adds. With a levain there are four parts, so the water temperature is the desired temperature times four, minus the room, flour, and levain temperatures and the friction factor. Without a levain it is times three. The friction factor is the one number you cannot measure directly: about 2 °C for hand mixing and about 12 °C for a stand mixer are sensible starting points, and a thermometer in a few finished doughs will tune yours.
What temperature to aim for
Most sourdough is happiest mixed at 24 to 26 °C. Warmer ferments faster and sourer; cooler is slower and milder. In a hot kitchen the answer can come out below what a tap gives, which means ice water or chilled flour; above 40 °C you would start to harm the culture, so warm the flour and the room instead.
Related reading
- Bulk fermentation calculator: how long bulk takes at that dough temperature
- Feeding schedule by temperature: the same physics, applied to the starter
- Baker's percentage calculator: turn a whole formula into weights