Sourdough Bread Lab
Starter, water and salt per 100 g of flour, from beginner loaves to open-crumb boules.
152 recipes from 61 sites, each reduced to grams and written as baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient per 100 g of flour, so a small recipe and a double batch line up. Below: the typical loaf, how far recipes stray from it, and a page for every recipe with a link to the original.
Recipes
152
from 61 sites
Typical flour
500 g
about 4 cups
Oven
450°F
230°C · median of 128
Bake time
30 min
most 20 to 40 min
The median of all 152 recipes for each ingredient, scaled to 500 g of flour. No single recipe is exactly this: each line is the middle of its own distribution. “Most recipes” means the middle half, from the 25th to the 75th percentile.
| Ingredient | Grams |
|---|---|
| FlourThe scale for everything else | 500 gabout 4 cups |
| StarterMost recipes use 95 to 150 g | 125 g |
| WaterMost recipes use 300 to 375 g | 340 gabout 1 1/2 cups |
| SaltMost recipes use 9 to 12 g | 10 g |
| Fat85% use none; the rest mostly 21 to 43 g | none |
| Sweetener82% use none; the rest mostly 10 to 27 g | none |
Bake450°F (230°C) for about 30 minutes.
Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.
Each dot is a recipe, placed by grams of the ingredient per 100 g of flour (100% would be as much as the flour). The shaded band is the middle half of recipes and the line is the median.
median 25% · most 19 to 30%
Active starter by flour weight. More starter rises faster and tastes milder; less starter needs a longer, sourer ferment. Its own flour and water are not counted in the other numbers.
range 3.1 to 58%
median 68% · most 60 to 75%
Water added to the dough, the main hydration lever: higher water gives the open, irregular crumb and is harder to shape.
range 50 to 95%
median 2% · most 1.8 to 2.3%
About 2% of the flour, the bread standard.
range 1 to 3%
median 0% · 85% use none
Most country loaves use none; sandwich-style sourdough adds butter or oil.
range 0 to 12% · those that use some, mostly 4.1 to 8.6%
median 0% · 82% use none
Usually none; sandwich loaves add a little honey.
range 0 to 8.6% · those that use some, mostly 2 to 5.3%
Measured by how far apart the 25th and 75th percentile recipes are. The widest gaps are where the choice of recipe matters most.
Recipes agree most on water: water 60 to 75% for the middle half.
133 of the recipes come in 3 languages with enough of each to compare: English 83, French 26, German 24.
English recipes whose titles use a word, against the ones that do not. What recipe writers do when they pick the word, not proof that it makes the texture.
Recipes called “easy” (10) use about the same amounts as the rest on every ingredient measured here.
Recipes with “sandwich” in the title: most add sweetener (90% vs 5% use some); most add fat (80% vs 9% use some).
“sandwich” (10)the rest (73)middle half of all
Sweetener · share using anyrecipes with sandwich in the title 90% vs the rest 5%
Fat · share using anyrecipes with sandwich in the title 80% vs the rest 9%
40 sourdough bread recipes have 50 or more reader ratings. A rating count says how many people rated a page, which follows its traffic more than its quality. Against the other 112, medians per 100 g of flour, compared within each language:
The most-reviewed recipes use 7% less water than the rest (65% against 70% of the flour weight).
50+ ratings (40)the rest (112)middle half of all
Starterthe most-reviewed recipes 27% vs the rest 25%
Waterthe most-reviewed recipes 65% vs the rest 70%
Saltthe most-reviewed recipes 2.1% vs the rest 2%
Fatthe most-reviewed recipes 0% vs the rest 0%
Sweetenerthe most-reviewed recipes 0% vs the rest 0%
128 of 152 recipes state an oven temperature, and 31% of those bake at 450°F (230°C). The middle half bake at 450 to 475°F. The other 24 do not say.
136 recipes state a bake time. Taking the middle of any stated range (“55 to 65 minutes” counts as 60), the median is 30 minutes and the middle half bake 20 to 40 minutes.
The single most common pairing is 450°F for 20 to 30 minutes, with 13 of the 121 recipes that state both.
Nearest the median on every ingredient at once.
In 7 languages: English 83, French 26, German 24, Italian 7, Dutch 5, Spanish 5, Portuguese 2. Lines in other languages are read in their own units and words, and each recipe page links to the original. 61 sites in all. No site contributes more than 12 recipes.
Every ingredient line is converted to grams and grouped (butter and oil count as fat; white, brown and liquid sweeteners as sugar), then divided by the flour weight. That baker's percentage is the only comparison that holds across recipes of different sizes.
96% of the 1,052 ingredient lines got a weight. 84% of those weights were printed by the source; the rest were converted from cups and spoons with standard densities, so treat single recipes as close, not exact. Frosting, glaze, streusel and other toppings are listed on each recipe page but left out of the percentages.
A recipe outside the plausible range for any ingredient is left out rather than allowed to stretch every chart; it is usually a different dish with the same name or a misread line. Of the pages fetched, 316 were left out: 166 with a title that names a different dish, 115 outside the plausible range on some ingredient (starter 66, water 31, salt 15, fat 2, sweetener 1), 20 with no flour, or none that could be weighed, 7 too many lines without an amount, 4 with an ingredient in amounts that could not be weighed, 3 duplicates of other pages, and 1 over the 12-per-site cap.
Every recipe page links to the original, which is where the method is. Recipe Lab does not republish instructions or photos.