Converter
Sourdough Converter
Any yeast recipe, recalculated for a 100% hydration starter.
YOUR YEAST RECIPE
g
g
g
g
%
About the Sourdough Converter
A sourdough starter is flour and water that already carry the culture, so it cannot simply be added on top of a yeast recipe, the flour and water it brings have to be subtracted from the main dough. This converter does that arithmetic and keeps the final hydration where the original recipe put it.
The default assumption is a 100% hydration starter (equal parts flour and water by weight), which is the most common way to keep a pizza starter. At 20% starter on flour weight you get a mild result; towards 30% the dough ferments faster and tastes more sour.
How it works
- Enter the flour, water, yeast and salt from your existing recipe.
- Choose how much starter to use, as a percentage of flour weight (15–35%).
- The converter subtracts the starter's flour and water from the main dough.
- Follow the generated timeline, feeding, mixing, bulk, cold retard, bake day.
Questions about sourdough conversion
How much sourdough starter replaces 1 g of fresh yeast?
There is no fixed exchange rate, starter works far more slowly than commercial yeast, so the conversion is done through time, not through an equivalent weight. In practice 20–30% starter on flour weight replaces the yeast, and the schedule gets longer to match.
Why does the flour and water change?
A 100% hydration starter is half flour and half water. Adding 100 g of it adds 50 g flour and 50 g water, so both are subtracted from the main dough to keep the recipe's hydration and dough weight unchanged.
When is my starter ready to use?
Use it at its peak: risen to roughly double, domed rather than collapsed, and bubbly throughout. For most starters that is 6–8 hours after a feed at room temperature, which is why the timeline starts with a feeding step.