Baking tools that do the math
Baking science, minus the guesswork.
Get your water right, land your dough temp, and stop guessing when bulk is done. Real numbers from real flour — for home and micro-bakers who would rather bake than calculate.
The toolkit
Two live calculators. Two more on the way.
Sourdough Calculator
LiveTrue hydration with the starter water counted, the water temp that lands your dough where you want it, and a bulk window for your kitchen — not someone else's.
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Pizza Calculator
NewNY, Neapolitan, Detroit, and sheet-pan — yeast dosed from your fermentation schedule, dough sized from balls or pan, hydration matched to your oven's heat.
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Pricing Calculator
NewWhat to charge, not just how to bake: cost the batch honestly — ingredients, packaging, your labor, overhead, and the ones that don't sell — then price per item, per flavor, and per whole market order.
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Bagels & Stiff Doughs
Coming soonChewy low-hydration bagels: how much barley malt, how long the boil, and a mix your mixer survives.
Enriched & Pastry
Coming soonButter, eggs, and sugar in the right amounts — a rich dough that still rises and doesn't tear.
Guides & troubleshooting
Plain answers for sticky dough, gummy crumb, and bulk that never seems to end on time.
Hydration
The Flour Hydration Ceiling
Why an 80% mix turns into a sticky puddle — true hydration, flour ceilings, and how to walk it back.
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Fermentation
Bulk Fermentation by Temperature and Starter
Warm kitchen, fast bulk. Cold kitchen, slow bulk. Read your hours from dough temp and starter amount — then hit your dough temp with the right water.
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Diagnosis
Reading Your Sourdough Crumb
Dense, gummy, or caves under the crust? Your crumb is telling you exactly what happened. Read it, then change one thing.
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Levain
Feeding Your Starter: Ratios and Peak Timing
Want your levain ready at 9 a.m., not 2 a.m.? Pick the feeding ratio and room temp that land the peak at mix time — and build exactly what you need.
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Mix
Autolyse vs. Fermentolyse: When to Rest (and When to Skip)
Rest flour and water first, add the starter to the rest, or skip it entirely? It depends on your flour. Here's when a rest helps — and when it melts your dough.
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Pizza
Pizza Dough Hydration: 60% vs 70% vs 80%
60% for the sheet pan, 70% for the steel, 80% only if the oven can cash the check. Match the water to the heat you own.
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Bagels
Bagel Dough: Mix, Shape, Boil
55–58% hydration, a boil you don't skip, and a hole that looks too big. Dense crumb and shiny crust, on purpose.
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Enriched
Enriched Doughs and Fermentation
Fat and sugar slow the yeast and lie about the proof. Mix gluten first, run warmer, and read a 60% rise instead of a double.
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Preferment
Poolish, Biga, and Levain
Three preferments, three jobs: poolish for stretch, biga for strength, levain for tang. Ratios, clocks, and which one your bake actually needs.
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Scoring
Scoring for an Open Ear
The ear comes from proof, blade angle, and depth — in that order. 30°, 10 mm deep, one motion, cold dough.
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Schedule
Sourdough Around a Work Week
Three timed schedules so fermentation happens while you're at work. The fridge is the pause button; room temp is not.
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Temperature
Desired Dough Temperature Calculator
Room temperature is not dough temperature. The water-temp formula — from flour, room, starter, and friction.
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Cold Proof
Cold Proof Sourdough How Long
The fridge is the pause button, not a stop. 12h vs 24h vs 36h — flavor against structure.
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Formula
Baker's Percentage Chart
Flour is 100%. Everything else hangs off it. True hydration vs. bowl hydration, worked by hand.
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Pricing
Costing Is Not Pricing
Ingredients are the smallest slice of the cost. Labor, overhead, waste, packaging — then a price with the profit already in it.
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Focaccia
Focaccia Hydration Percentage
80% hydration feels impossible until the pan does the structural work. Dimple without degassing.
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Bulk
How to Tell When Bulk Fermentation Is Done
The clock is a window. The dough is the decision. Jiggle, dome, edge bubbles, aliquot jar.
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Discard
What to Do with Sourdough Discard
Discard is your starter, unfed — flavor and tenderness, not a workforce. Three good uses, one to stop.
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Pizza
Detroit-Style Pizza Dough
72% hydration the pan forgives. Pan weight, not ball weight — plus when to par-bake and why the sauce goes last.
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Bake
Baking Sourdough Without a Dutch Oven
Steam is the job, the pot is one way to do it. Lava rocks, spray, and roasters — and what each one costs you.
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Pizza
Pizza Dough Ball Weight Chart
Ball weight is crust thickness. The 12-inch band, area-scaled rows, and why the scale beats the bench knife.
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Whole Grain
Whole Wheat Sourdough Adjustments
Bran cuts gluten and drinks water. Higher hydration, a short rest, shorter bulk — and what stays the same.
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Schedule
Same-Day Sourdough
Compress the two-day loaf: warm dough, ripe starter, shorter bulk. What you trade, what you keep.
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Levain
Make a Sourdough Starter from Scratch
Flour, water, and time — including the day-3 false rise and the day-5 stall nobody warns about.
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Newsletter
Practical Math for Makers
Practical costing and pricing math for bakers, soapmakers, and small farms — no spam, unsubscribe anytime.