Support

No. SourTime has no sign-up and no server — open the app, set your loaf weight, start baking. Everything you create stays on your device.

Free, and staying that way: the calculator with all amounts, the complete timer across all five phases, the starter assistant including feeding reminders, quiet hours, the water temperature calculator, widgets, the Apple Watch app with its complication, and a bake history with photos and ratings.

SourTime Pro adds:

• Plan mode: work backwards from a target time, optionally with an overnight cold proof
• Oven preheat reminder
• Live Activity on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island
• Unlimited history instead of the last ten bakes
• As many custom flour mixes as you like instead of one
• Several starters side by side instead of one

An iPhone or iPad running iOS 18 or later. The Watch app needs watchOS 11 and an Apple Watch paired with your iPhone — it mirrors the iPhone's timer rather than running one of its own.

SourTime speaks 24 languages and normally follows your system language. You can also change it for SourTime alone: Settings → Language. It takes effect immediately, including dates and times.

You set how heavy the finished loaf should be, and the app works backwards: flour, water, starter and salt follow from your hydration and your flour mix. Change any one of them and the rest follows straight away.

Yes. Set the proportions and save them with “Save as custom mix”. The free version keeps one custom mix, Pro keeps as many as you like. The classic mixes (farmhouse, rye blend and so on) are always available regardless.

Yes — Settings → Units switches from metric to imperial. For sourdough we would still reach for the scale: hydration is a weight ratio, and volume measures of flour vary a lot.

That is what the water temperature calculator in the menu is for. Enter your room and flour temperature plus your target dough temperature, and it tells you the water temperature to hit it.

Yes. SourTime does not remember a counting-down number but the moment the phase ends. So the app may sit in the background, be force-quit, or the iPhone may restart — the remaining time is still right when you come back. That is what the notifications are for: you do not have to sit and watch.

They are guide values for a wheat-based mixed loaf, depending on the “Kitchen” setting (cool or warm):

• Autolyse 30 minutes
• Bulk ferment 4 hours (cool) or 3 hours (warm)
• Shaping 20 minutes
• Final proof 3 hours (cool) or 2 hours (warm)
• Bake 40 to 60 minutes, depending on loaf weight

Dough does not read clocks. So you can end any phase early with “Done” or simply let it run longer — the readiness check tells you the signs that actually matter.

That is deliberate. When the first phase starts, SourTime freezes the recipe: the amounts and times of the loaf in progress stay as they were at the start. Otherwise a nudge of the dial halfway through bulk would pull the schedule out from under you. Your new settings apply to the next loaf.

Usually one of three things:

• Notifications for SourTime are not allowed in iOS Settings
• “Timer & notifications” is switched off in the app's settings
• A Focus or Do Not Disturb is hiding them — delivery itself still works

Either way, the timer itself keeps running correctly.

You set a window in which you would like to sleep. If a step would fall inside it, SourTime warns you before you start and suggests a time that works out cleanly. Start anyway and the hands-on steps are moved to the end of the quiet window — so nothing goes off at three in the morning.

The timer in reverse: you say when the bread should be out of the oven or on the table, and SourTime works out when to begin. If something lands in your quiet hours you have two options — shift the target time, or move the final proof into the fridge overnight and bake in the morning. It can set a reminder for every step. Plan mode is part of Pro.

Yes — during the final proof you can choose how many minutes before it ends you want the reminder, so the oven is hot when the dough is ready. That reminder is part of Pro. The prompt to take the lid off 20 minutes into the bake is there for everyone.

With the starter assistant: seven days, each with amounts, what to do, and its own timer. It runs independently of the bake timer, so you can bake at the same time. At the end you give the starter a name and save it.

Seven days is a guide, not a promise — a cool kitchen takes longer. Go by bubbles, smell, and whether it doubles within 4 to 8 hours after feeding. What usually helps: somewhere warmer (around 25 °C / 77 °F) and feeding more wholemeal or rye flour.

Yes, for the starter marked as active. At room temperature SourTime reminds you every 24 hours, in the fridge every 7 days. After feeding, tap “Fed just now” and the rhythm starts over.

With Pro, yes — a wheat and a rye starter side by side for instance, each with its own name and feeding schedule. The free version manages one.

It shows the running phase with the time left and lets you pause and resume. The complication puts the remaining time right on your watch face. Reset and skip are deliberately missing on the wrist — a mis-tap would cost hours of progress, so those stay on the iPhone.

The watch mirrors what is running on the iPhone, so with no timer running it stays empty. If a timer is running and nothing arrives, open SourTime on the iPhone once — that sends the current state again. After that, check the usual: are watch and iPhone connected?

Two conditions: SourTime Pro has to be unlocked, and “Live Activities” must be allowed for SourTime in iOS Settings. The Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets are separate from this and work without Pro.

€9.99 once — no subscription, no recurring charge, no ads. Buy it once, keep it. Prices may differ by country; that is Apple's doing.

No. The purchase is tied to your Apple Account and applies on every device signed in with it. If Pro is not active straight away after reinstalling, tap “Restore purchases” on the Pro screen.

Purchases go entirely through Apple, so refunds do too: sign in with your Apple Account at reportaproblem.apple.com. We cannot issue a refund ourselves — but do tell us what was missing.

On your device. Recipes, bakes, starters, photos and settings never leave it — there is no account and no server for anything to be uploaded to. We collect no usage statistics and include no tracking. The details are in the privacy policy.

Delete individual bakes in the history and a starter in its list. Remove SourTime from the device and all local data goes with it. If you have iCloud backups switched on, a backup may contain this data — you manage that in iOS Settings.

That is the free version's limit — but the older entries are not deleted. They stay stored and are all back the moment you unlock Pro.