John, if the dough felt heavy or dry, then unfortunately you're probably right not to expect a full rise. The exact ratio of water:flour needed depends on a number of factors, including the humidity in your kitchen, as well as how you measure your flour. How much flour gets into one cup can vary drastically based on your technique, which is what led us to include this note: "if you measure flour by sprinkling it into a cup and sweeping off the excess, use 3 1/4 cups water. If you measure by dipping your measuring cup into the flour canister, tapping it to settle the flour, then leveling it off, use 3 1/2 cups water." Because there are so many factors at play, in the future we'd suggest adjusting the water:flour ratio as needed to achieve the desired dough consistency (in this case "sticky"), rather than sticking strictly to the volume measurements. We've had much better success using this as a guidepost and suspect you will too. Mollie@KAF

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