Out of curiosity and having seen many original comments describing the dough as too wet, and a recent comment of too dry (and that is true of almost all bread recipes … just a fact of breadmaking and all of the variables as noted) … I made this recipe twice this week.
I did review the videos and one thing of note: day 2 mixing (middle to end of the first video) … @eric adds starter, water, salt, rye and spelt flours. For the white flour, he adds a bit at a time, mixing in between additions and finally turning the dough out on the bench to hand knead. This is how I’ve made “kneaded bread” before I started making high moisture breads. And the benefit … actually the necessity in this particular recipe is that you stop adding flour or add more until you reach the desired dough feel which is depicted in the video and described as tacky but not sticky.
My first round with this recipe, I used all Bob’s Red Mill flours and when I had added the recipe quantity of flour, my dough was on the sticky side. If I wasn’t sort of testing things, I would have added more flour to get to the tacky … but I wanted to see how the slightly wet dough would bake.
Soft crumb, hearty enough for sandwiches, toasts well … I waited 12 hours to slice and think it tasted even better after 24.
Round 2, I used my WheatMontana AP White flour which is fairly high protein (13.3) and my normal white bread flour. This time, as I was adding the white flour, I got to tacky, not sticky and still had 41 grams of flour left, so I stopped adding flour as the dough was perfect look and feel.
Pretty similar bakes. I think round 2 has a slightly more open crumb and I like the taste a little better.
Hardly a scientific test as on any day things might go different, but I’m guessing that if I took round 1 to the correct look and feel, I would have added perhaps 80 grams more flour to that mix than to my 2nd mix … a fairly significant difference with just 1 of the flours (white) being different and the temp, humidity in my kitchen being pretty much the same both rounds.
At any rate, no right or wrong with those that find “the exact recipe” too wet or too dry … although I’d recommend adding dry to wet as in the video. Then either stop adding flour when you are at the dough feel you want or add additional flour if the dough is too sticky after the recipe amount.