Fermentation & Food Lab
Scientific calculators for brewing, baking, and food preservation.
Microbes do not read your recipe
Fermentation is a negotiation with organisms that follow their own rules. Yeast converts sugar to alcohol at a rate you can measure but cannot easily hurry. Sourdough starter is a live culture whose hydration changes the moment you feed it, quietly shifting the water balance of any dough you build from it. Nitrite salts protect cured meat from Clostridium botulinum, but only if the concentration is above a safe threshold — and not so far above it as to be a hazard on its own. Coffee extraction sits inside a narrow window where the same beans can taste sour, balanced, or bitter depending on a percentage-point shift in yield.
What you'll find here
Four calculators for the four fermentation-adjacent crafts where a number in the wrong place changes the outcome. The Brewing ABV Calculator turns hydrometer readings into alcohol content using both the standard formula and the corrected alternate for barleywines and meads. The Sourdough Hydration Calculator does true baker's math including the flour and water hidden inside your levain. The Coffee Extraction Calculator uses TDS and brew mass to place your cup inside the SCA Gold Cup zone or tell you exactly which direction to adjust. The Charcuterie Cure Calculator handles both equilibrium curing and traditional dry cures using Prague Powder #1 or #2 at USDA-safe concentrations.
Food safety is a hard floor
Some of the numbers in this lab are not preferences — they are floors and ceilings set by public health data. The charcuterie calculator does not let you talk it into a below-safe nitrite level. The brewing calculator flags gravity readings that suggest incomplete fermentation. When the math meets a food-safety threshold, the tool tells you.
Tools in this lab
Coffee Extraction Calculator
Calculate coffee extraction yield from TDS readings and check if you hit the Gold Cup zone.
Brewing ABV Calculator
Calculate alcohol by volume from original and final gravity readings for homebrewed beer, wine, and cider.
Sourdough Hydration Calculator
Calculate true dough hydration accounting for starter water and flour content using baker's math.
Charcuterie Cure Calculator
Calculate safe curing salt and Prague Powder amounts for equilibrium and traditional meat curing.