Hi Carrie, I'm sorry to hear that you had difficulties with this recipe! Rye flour does generally make for a stickier dough, especially if you're kneading by hand. You're correct that using our Bread flour instead of our All-Purpose flour should have resulted in a somewhat stiffer dough, but the rye flour component is still there—sticky as ever. In addition, rye flours can vary quite a bit in coarseness and absorption, so if you happened to use a different brand or type of rye flour, this could have caused your dough to be a bit wetter and stickier than the dough pictured. One more factor that may be impacting this recipe is the old bread component. When I make this mixture I squeeze out most of the excess water, so it looks and feels like clumpy cooked oatmeal. If your old bread soaker was a lot wetter than this, it would likely result in a wetter dough. Learning how to deal with wet dough, and also how to handle the unique properties of rye flour can definitely be challenging, but it sounds like you are well on your way. Good luck, and let us know how we can continue to help you on your bread baking journey! 

Barb

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