Desired Dough Temperature Calculator: What Water Temperature to Use
Dough temperature sets the pace of a sourdough: a warmer dough ferments faster and a cooler one slower, as the temperature guide shows. The desired dough temperature method picks the water temperature that lands your dough near the temperature you want, from the temperatures of the other ingredients.
The formula
With a starter in the dough, four temperatures matter: flour, room, starter and water. The method treats them as equally important, so the dough temperature is their average, plus the heat from mixing:
dough temperature = (flour + room + starter + water + friction) ÷ 4
Solve for the water:
water = 4 × desired dough temperature − (flour + room + starter + friction)
- Friction is the number of degrees the mixing adds. It depends on your mixer or hands and on how long you work the dough, so this site doesn't assume a value. Leave it blank if you don't know it, then measure.
- Enter every temperature in the same unit. The friction factor is a difference in degrees, so it converts with the factor 9/5 or 5/9 when you change units, not with the 32° shift.
Worked example
These readings are made up to show the arithmetic. You want a 75 °F dough. The flour is 68 °F, the room 72 °F and the starter 76 °F, with no friction factor:
water = 4 × 75 − (68 + 72 + 76) = 300 − 216 = 84 °F
If your mixing adds 6 °F of friction, the water drops by 6 °F: 300 − (216 + 6) = 78 °F.
In Celsius, for a 24 °C dough with flour at 20 °C, room at 22 °C and starter at 24.5 °C: 4 × 24 − (20 + 22 + 24.5) = 96 − 66.5 = 29.5 °C.
Finding your friction factor
Rearrange the formula using a mix you have already made. If you wanted a 78 °F dough, had 68 °F flour, a 72 °F room, a 76 °F starter and used 80 °F water, then
friction = 4 × 78 − (68 + 72 + 76 + 80) = 312 − 296 = 16 °F
This is an example of the arithmetic, not a typical value. Check it over several mixes and use the average if the numbers are close.
It's a rule of thumb
The method assumes each ingredient pulls the temperature equally. In a real dough the flour is most of the mass, and ingredients have different heat capacities, so the result is an estimate. Take the dough's temperature after mixing and adjust the water on the next bake. For how dough temperature changes timing, enter your own bulk time into the schedule calculator; it scales times between 18 and 30 °C (64 to 86 °F).
Sources
- The desired dough temperature method is a standard baker's calculation; the formula above is the arithmetic of averaging four temperatures and solving for the water.
- Gänzle, M. G., Ehmann, M., and Hammes, W. P. (1998). Modeling of Growth of Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis and Candida milleri in Response to Process Parameters of Sourdough Fermentation. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 64(7):2616–2623: temperature range behind the schedule calculator.