Alles, was wir bitten, ist eine Bewertung, erzählen Sie uns, was gut oder schlecht ist, damit wir wissen, was Sie wirklich denken, um unseren Service für Sie zu verbessern!
01
Instant results
No sign-up, no waiting. Type your numbers and get professional-grade calculations in real time.
02
Works anywhere
Metric or imperial, any currency. Built for bakers in the UK, US, Europe, Australia and beyond.
03
Baker's precision
From fermentation timing to lamination layers — every formula is grounded in real baking science.
Quick answer
⚡ LIVE
Live Ferment Timer
Dough temp — how warm your mixed dough feels (use a probe thermometer for accuracy). Inoculation — starter weight divided by flour weight × 100 (e.g. 100g starter in 500g flour = 20%). The timer updates as you type and shows a ±25% window because every kitchen is different. Open Start time, starter, cold retard to: set when you begin bulk fermentation and get a "ready at" clock; adjust for whether your starter is freshly fed, at peak, or hungry; or model a cold retard in the fridge. DoughRise Coach subscribers can record actual bulk times — after 3 bakes the predictions are calibrated to your kitchen, starter, and flour.
▶
Start time, starter, cold retard
Start time
Hours since fed
After (h)
Retard temp (°C)
Duration (h)
h
Saves to your history · calibrates after 3 bakes
DoughRise Pro
Save your formulas, track every bake
Pro unlocks formula history, bake logs, export to PDF, and advanced tools — everything a serious baker needs in one place.
All 25 calculators included · Cancel anytime · £9.99/mo
Enjoying the calculators?
Save results to your Pro account →
Go further
Pro
DoughRise Pro
Every tool saved, perfected. Save formulas, export to PDF, track your bake history.
Explore Pro →AI Coach
AI Baking Coach
A baking scientist in your pocket. Ask anything, get real answers grounded in technique.
Meet the Coach →Bakery
DoughRise Bakery
For bakers who mean business. Commercial scaling, costing engine, and team tools.
Go Bakery →Gluten Development Science
The autolyse calculator
for better gluten without the effort
Quick answer
Autolyse time is a base for your flour type (30 min white, 40 min wholemeal, capped at 20 min for rye), adjusted for hydration and kitchen temperature. Example: white flour, 75% hydration, 21°C room → 30 min. The same recipe in wholemeal flour → 40 min.
The autolyse calculator above gives you the correct rest time based on your flour type, hydration percentage, and kitchen temperature. Enter your details and it calculates the recommended autolyse duration, adjusting for flour protein content, how quickly the dough will hydrate at your ambient temperature, and any penalties or bonuses based on flour type.
Autolyse is one of the simplest techniques in sourdough baking and one of the most consistently rewarding. You mix flour and water, then do nothing for 20 to 60 minutes before adding your starter and salt. During that window, the flour fully absorbs the water and the gluten network begins to form without any kneading. The result is a dough that is noticeably more extensible, handles better during shaping, and develops more complex flavour.
The rest time is not fixed. Rye flour should be autolysed for no longer than 20 minutes because its enzymes can break down gluten with extended exposure to water. Wholemeal flour has bran particles that take longer to fully hydrate, so it benefits from a longer rest. Cold kitchens slow everything down and may need extra time added to the base calculation.
Explore all 25 baking calculators
Rye and spelt cap out early because their weaker gluten can’t take much more hydration before mixing.
5
Flour types supported
20m
Maximum for rye flour
Temp
Adjusted for kitchen temperature
How It Works
How the autolyse calculator adjusts for your kitchen
When flour meets water, starch granules start swelling straight away, but full hydration of the gluten-forming proteins, glutenin and gliadin, takes longer. It’s a diffusion process: water has to migrate into a tangled protein network and let it relax before it can begin linking up, and that takes minutes, not seconds. Skip the wait and start kneading immediately, and you’re doing by hand what a rest would have done for free. Wholemeal flour needs longer still, because its dense, sharp-edged bran particles are slower to fully absorb water, which is why the calculator adds roughly ten minutes to the white flour baseline. Rye works differently: its amylase and protease enzymes start breaking down starch and gluten the moment water touches the flour, so extending the rest weakens the dough rather than strengthening it, which is why the calculator caps rye at 20 minutes regardless of what else you enter.
Temperature and hydration feed into that same diffusion process, from different angles. Warmer water hydrates flour proteins faster, so a kitchen at 26°C needs noticeably less rest than one at 16°C. Hydration works in reverse: a stiffer 65% dough has less free water relative to the flour, so what water is present has further to travel, which is why the calculator adds roughly 0.4 minutes for every percentage point below its 75% baseline. Neither adjustment is dramatic alone, but stack a cool kitchen with a stiff dough and you can end up with a rest closer to 40 minutes than 20.
Worked example: a stiffer loaf on a Tuesday evening
Say you’re making a firmer 500g white flour loaf at 65% hydration, kitchen sitting at a fairly average 21°C.
- Water for autolyse: 500g × 65% = 325g (all of it goes in now; salt and starter wait)
- Base time for white flour: 30 minutes
- Hydration adjustment: 65% sits 10 points below the calculator’s 75% baseline, and each point adds roughly 0.4 minutes, so 10 × 0.4 = +4 minutes
- Temperature adjustment: 21°C is the baseline, so no change there
- Recommended autolyse: 30 + 4 = 34 minutes, workable range 29 to 44 minutes if you get pulled away
That extra 4 minutes matters more than it looks. With less water relative to the flour, hydration has further to travel, and a firmer mix like this feels tight and hard to shape if you skip the adjustment and default to the white flour baseline instead. If you’re testing a few hydration levels across several bakes, DoughRise Pro saves each autolyse setting alongside your bake log, so you’re comparing results rather than re-entering numbers every time.
Common autolyse mistakes
Adding salt or levain before the rest
Salt stiffens the gluten network on contact, cancelling out much of the extensibility autolyse is meant to build, and levain starts fermentation before the dough has finished developing passively. Keep it to flour and water only, then add salt and starter once the rest is done.
Using one time for every flour
White, wholemeal and rye don’t hydrate at the same rate, and treating them identically either under-rests a dense wholemeal or seriously over-rests a delicate rye. Set your actual flour type in the calculator; the ten-minute gap between white and wholemeal, and the hard cap on rye, are both there for good reason.
Ignoring how cold your kitchen actually is
A kitchen at 16°C hydrates flour noticeably slower than one at 21°C, and guessing at room temperature without a thermometer is how a 30 minute autolyse quietly becomes 24 minutes that hasn’t properly done its job. If your kitchen runs cold, rest the bowl inside the oven with just the interior light on, door shut, not preheated; that holds a steady 24 to 25°C without babysitting, bringing a cold-kitchen autolyse back close to baseline.
Frequently Asked
Questions about
autolyse and rest time
What is autolyse and why does it help bread?
Autolyse is a rest period at the start of bread making where you mix flour and water and then leave the dough alone before adding starter and salt. During this rest, the flour fully hydrates and the gluten network begins to develop on its own without any mechanical work. The result is a more extensible dough that is easier to shape, develops better flavour, and tends to produce a more open crumb. It was popularised by French baker Raymond Calvel and is now standard practice in most sourdough recipes.
How long should the autolyse rest be?
The ideal autolyse duration depends on your flour type, hydration, and kitchen temperature. White flour at standard hydration in a warm kitchen typically needs 20 to 30 minutes. Wholemeal flour benefits from 30 to 45 minutes because the bran particles take longer to fully hydrate. Rye flour is capped at around 20 minutes as its enzymes can degrade gluten with extended rest. Lower temperatures slow hydration, so a cooler kitchen may need additional minutes added to the base time.
Should I add salt and starter during the autolyse?
No. Classic autolyse uses only flour and water. Salt is added after the autolyse because it stiffens the gluten network prematurely, reducing the extensibility benefit. Starter is added after for the same reason: you want the gluten to develop without the interference of acidic fermentation products during the rest period. Some bakers use a modified autolyse that includes starter but not salt, which saves time in longer schedules while still providing most of the benefit.
What happens if I autolyse for too long?
Even flours other than rye will eventually suffer if the rest runs to hours instead of minutes. The flour’s native enzymes keep breaking down starch and gluten throughout, so the dough gradually turns slack and sticky well past the recommended window. Treat the calculator’s extended figure as a soft ceiling rather than a target, and put the bowl in the fridge if you need to step away for longer.
Can I autolyse dough overnight in the fridge?
Yes, and it’s useful when your schedule doesn’t line up with a 20 to 40 minute window. Chilling the mix slows both hydration and enzyme activity considerably, so an overnight autolyse in the fridge behaves like a much shorter one at room temperature, spread over many more hours. Bring the dough back towards room temperature for 30 to 60 minutes before adding starter and salt, so fermentation starts from a sensible base temperature.
Does autolyse work for pizza dough too?
Yes, and it’s particularly useful for high-hydration Neapolitan-style doughs, where the extra extensibility makes stretching a thin base easier without tearing. Use the same flour-and-water-only approach, then add salt and yeast or starter afterwards, following the same rest times as bread at a matching hydration and temperature. It matters less for stiffer, lower-hydration pan or Roman-style doughs, which are already easier to handle.
Twenty-five baking calculators.
One free toolkit.
Fermentation timers, hydration ratios, starter health, costing and more.
