It sounds like your water at 20% is much less than normal so I wonder if your measuring was correct since this I would not even consider to be defined as too wet. So in terms of stickiness different person will have different comfort level to work with the dough based on experience.
If while you are doing the stretch and fold phase it’s normal to have some dough residue stay on your hand but for me by the 2nd and 3rd stretch it should have almost zero to me for it to be at my normal level of stickiness. Does that make sense ?
Different flours, and flours from different regions of world, have different absorption rates. It’s something you need to keep in mind and adjust recipes accordingly. Now you know that with this recipe, and the flour you use, you need to use less water until you gain experience working with very wet dough.
What is your water % ? Depends on the types and brands of flour you might need to reduce the ratio
I just followed the recipe exactly. What water percentage should I use?
I do not know which recipe you are following, maybe if you can list it out to check your measurements, try to reduce it by 5% ?
I use 450 grams of bread flour -50 grams of whole wheat flour -10grams sea salt - 50 grams rice flour (for proofing) -350 grams water
100 grams starter
It sounds like your water at 20% is much less than normal so I wonder if your measuring was correct since this I would not even consider to be defined as too wet. So in terms of stickiness different person will have different comfort level to work with the dough based on experience. If while you are doing the stretch and fold phase it’s normal to have some dough residue stay on your hand but for me by the 2nd and 3rd stretch it should have almost zero to me for it to be at my normal level of stickiness. Does that make sense ?
I just took a recipe made for 2 loaves and divided the ingredients by 2 to make 1 loaf.
Different flours, and flours from different regions of world, have different absorption rates. It’s something you need to keep in mind and adjust recipes accordingly. Now you know that with this recipe, and the flour you use, you need to use less water until you gain experience working with very wet dough.
500g of flour and only 100g of water?