America's 250th birthday is once in a lifetime. So is your starter's first really great loaf. From now through July 4th, DoughPace is free — because some things shouldn't be gatekept during a celebration this big. Simply enter promo code: BAKEFREE250 at checkout.
A few people have asked me genuinely sharp questions about DoughPace this week — the kind of questions that tell me exactly who's using it. Things like:
"Does it use Q10 temperature scaling?" "Does it account for inoculation percentage?" "Is this based on published fermentation research?"
I love these questions. They're proof that the sourdough community is exactly as nerdy and precise as I am — and they deserve honest answers, not marketing spin.
So here's the truth.
What DoughPace actually does
DoughPace is built on one solid, well-established relationship: warmer dough ferments faster, cooler dough ferments slower. That's not controversial — it's something every baker eventually learns by feel, and it's the foundation the entire app is built on. DoughPace takes your dough temperature, assigns it a pace, and adjusts your bulk fermentation timeline in real time as that temperature changes.
That part works. That part is genuinely useful. That's why I built it. But I'm a just a maker and a home baker, not a professional software developer.
Most niche baking apps have moved toward subscriptions ($3–10/month), which is hard to justify if someone bakes once or twice a week.
Most sourdough apps are essentially:
- recipe databases
- starter feeding reminders
- baking journals
- timers
Most new bakers struggle with timing bulk fermentation. An app that continuously adjusts expectations based on temperature is tackling a real pain point.
For someone who bakes sourdough regularly, $9 one time for lifetime usage felt like a reasonable price to me—and the current promo code makes it free through July 4.
What it doesn't do — yet
Here's where I want to be completely straight with you, because I'd rather you hear it from me than discover it the hard way.
It doesn't currently account for inoculation percentage — how much starter you're using relative to your flour weight. A baker using 150g of starter is going to ferment meaningfully faster than one using 100g, even at the exact same dough temperature. Right now, DoughPace doesn't know the difference.
It doesn't adjust for overall dough hydration. It accounts for starter hydration (liquid vs. stiff), but not the hydration of your final dough. A wetter dough and a stiffer dough can behave differently even under identical temperature conditions.
It's not built from a peer-reviewed dataset or Q10 scaling model. The temperature adjustments are reasoned estimates based on widely accepted baking science and my own five months of obsessive bake-tracking — not a continuous biological curve or a large dataset of tracked outcomes.
You can't yet calibrate it to your own starter's personality. If your starter consistently runs faster or slower than DoughPace predicts, the app doesn't have a way to learn that about you yet.
Why I'm telling you this instead of just fixing it quietly
Because I think you deserve to know what you're trusting your dough to. I'd rather have one honest blog post than a hundred bakers feeling misled when their bake doesn't match the app exactly.
DoughPace was built by a baker, not a fermentation lab. It's meant to replace a static clock with something that actually responds to your kitchen — and it does that well. But it's not a substitute for your own eyes, your own nose, and the windowpane test. Use DoughPace's pace guidance and trust what you're seeing in the bowl. That combination beats a fixed recipe time, every time.
What's coming
Inoculation percentage is the most requested gap, and it's the one I'm prioritizing next. I'm targeting late summer for that update — it'll let you enter your starter weight alongside your flour weight, and DoughPace will adjust your timeline accordingly, the same way it already adjusts for dough type today.
Hydration adjustments and starter calibration are on the list after that, but I'd rather ship one thing well than promise everything at once.
One last thing. If your starter is not ready to lift a loaf, nailing the bulk fermentation time won't save you from a flat, dense loaf as I explained in this blog post:
You Did Everything Right. So Why Is Your Bread Still Flat?
If you've got questions about how DoughPace works — or doesn't, yet — I want to hear them. This app gets better because people like you ask hard questions. Find me on Instagram @islandthymesoap or Contact Me
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