Start from the pot.

Choose what you are baking in and the calculator sizes the dough to fill it, then lists every gram — counting the flour and water already inside your levain.

Scale from

Baking in The common size, and the one most recipes are written for. How many

Formula

Every percentage is a share of the total flour.

Hydration % Salt % Levain %

Whole wheat % of flour The rest is bread flour. 10–20% adds flavour without much effect on the crumb.

Weigh out

900 g of dough at 75% hydration.

Bread flour	90%	407 g
Whole wheat	10%	51 g
Water	75%	331 g
Starter (levain)	20%	102 g
Salt	2%	10 g
Dough		900 g

The levain brings 51 g of flour and 51 g of water with it. Both are already inside the totals, which is why the water you pour is less than the hydration suggests.

About right for a 5 qt / 4.7 L Dutch oven or a 5.5 qt / 5.2 L Dutch oven.

Water temperature

Dough temperature does more to your timing than anything else in the recipe.

Target dough ° Room ° Flour ° Levain °

Mixer friction ° 0 by hand; a few degrees for a stand mixer.

96°F

Water at this temperature lands the dough on target.

Got the numbers? Now bake it.

In the app the same calculator feeds straight into a live timeline, with the levain build worked out from how you feed your own starter.

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