Sourdough baking schedule: plan the day backward
A sourdough baking schedule is not a fixed set of times. It is one number, your dough temperature, applied to a fixed sequence of stages. The sequence never changes: build the levain, mix, bulk ferment, shape, proof, bake. What changes is how long each stage takes, and temperature moves the long ones by hours.
So the practical way to plan a bake is backward. Decide when you want bread out of the oven, then subtract each stage at your temperature.
The stages and what they cost
At a dough temperature of 24C (75F), a typical loaf runs roughly like this.
| Stage | Typical length | What sets it |
|---|---|---|
| Levain build | 6-12 hours | Feed ratio and temperature |
| Autolyse | 30-60 minutes | Flour type; whole grain wants longer |
| Mix and folds | 2 hours | Fixed; runs inside bulk |
| Bulk ferment | 4-6 hours | Dough temperature, above all |
| Pre-shape and rest | 30 minutes | Fixed |
| Final proof, room temp | 1-2 hours | Dough temperature |
| Final proof, cold | 8-16 hours | Fridge temperature |
| Bake | 45 minutes | Fixed |
Only two of those really move: the levain build and bulk fermentation. Everything else is close enough to fixed that you can treat it as a constant and plan around the two that are not.
How temperature moves bulk
Fermentation roughly doubles in speed for every 8-10C of warmth. In practice that means the same dough behaves like a different recipe across a normal range of kitchens.
| Dough temperature | Bulk ferment | Character |
|---|---|---|
| 18C (64F) | 8-12 hours | Slow, tangy, overnight friendly |
| 21C (70F) | 6-8 hours | Long day, mild tang |
| 24C (75F) | 4-6 hours | The standard reference |
| 26C (79F) | 3.5-4.5 hours | Same-day pace |
| 28C (82F) | 3-4 hours | Fast; watch it closely |
Take the temperature of the dough itself after mixing, not the room. A dough mixed with warm water sits above room temperature for hours. Estimate your own bulk from a measured temperature with the fermentation calculator.
Four schedules that fit real days
Same-day bake. Feed the starter the night before, mix at 8 am with warm water, bulk warm, bake mid-afternoon. Bread by evening. → Same-day sourdough bread
Overnight bulk. Mix at 7:30 pm with cool water and less starter, let a long cool bulk run while you sleep, shape and bake before work. → Overnight sourdough bread
Overnight cold proof. The most flexible. Mix in the morning, bulk through the day, shape in the evening, then proof in the fridge overnight. Bake straight from cold whenever you get up. The fridge stage tolerates anywhere from 8 to 16 hours, which absorbs almost any disruption to your plan.
Weekend two-day. Build the levain Friday night, mix Saturday morning, bulk Saturday, cold proof Saturday night, bake Sunday morning. The longest ferment and the deepest flavor.
Working backward, worked
Say you want bread out of the oven at 6 pm on Saturday, at a dough temperature of 24C.
| Clock | Do this |
|---|---|
| 6:00 pm | Out of the oven |
| 5:15 pm | Into the oven |
| 4:15 pm | Oven on, Dutch oven heating |
| 3:15 pm | Shape, into the banneton, final proof |
| 2:45 pm | Pre-shape, bench rest |
| 9:00 am to 2:45 pm | Bulk ferment, folds in the first two hours |
| 8:45 am | Add starter and salt |
| 8:00 am | Mix flour and water, autolyse |
| Friday 9:00 pm | Feed the starter 1:5:5 so it peaks by morning |
Change the dough temperature and only the bulk row moves, but it drags everything above it with it. That is the whole reason to plan from the bake and not from the mix. The bake schedule planner lays the same timeline out for any finish time and temperature, and the Banneton app sets a timer for each stage so the day runs itself.
Building the levain to land at the right time
The stage people most often get wrong is the one before the schedule starts. Your levain has to peak when you want to mix, and the feed ratio is how you aim it: 1:1:1 peaks in 4-6 hours, 1:5:5 in 10-12, at 24C. Feed a big ratio at bedtime to mix in the morning, a small one in the morning to mix that afternoon. → Sourdough feeding ratios
When the schedule slips
It will. The fridge is the pause button: chilling the dough at any point after shaping slows fermentation to a crawl and buys you 8-16 hours. Chilling mid-bulk works too, though it is less predictable, so pull the dough out and finish bulk at room temperature rather than trying to time it cold.
What you cannot do is speed a schedule up at the end. A dough that is under-fermented at shaping will bake dense and tight no matter how long you proof it, because proof is not a second chance at bulk.
Every time here is an estimate that assumes a healthy starter and a measured dough temperature. Judge bulk by rise and feel, roughly 50-75% larger, domed and jiggly, and let the clock be a guide rather than the verdict.