Return to Barry Harmon's Artisan Bread Baking

A lot of bread books talk about smooth, non-sticky dough. This is my hand after kneading this dough, and it's a 60% hydration. This tells me that the hydration of a lot of breads is a lot lower than the book authors think it is. Either that or there is a lot of unhydrated flour in their dough, which will make the dough seem dryer than it is.