Susan's Ultimate Sourdough too wet dough

I recently tried Susan of San Diego’s Ultimate Sourdough – one small loaf. I used 25g Stoates stone-ground organic rye flour (instead of the whole wheat) and 225 g. Gilchester organic unbleached white bread flour, 12 g starter and 175 g. water,5 g salt . I  followed the method exactly but with an overnight proof in the frig. I’ve been making different sourdoughs for quite a while now but this was the best I’ve ever made with a superb deep flavour .

So good in fact that next I  doubled the recipe and made one large one – 60 g. rye, 190 g.

Gilchester 350 g. water, 24 g. starter, 10 g. salt.   This too was very good but I noticed that the dough  seemed wetter than the previous one, the proofing  took much longer  and it didn’t rise quite as well.

The third time with the doubled recipe  I deducted 25 g. water and yet it became noticeably wetter than try No. 2  during the mixing even though I added about two tablespoons of extra flour. The dough continued to be unmanageably wet throughout and not much rising took place. I won’t torture you with my exhaustive efforts along the way  but finally I decided to make a ciabatta which had tremendous flavour but not too much rise.

I weigh all my ingredients including the water. I realize that the starter is a small amount so needs long proofing.   My starter was 1:3:4 as recommended and  made  from a very active refreshed starter. The flours were from the same bags.

Although most people on the supplier’s website absolutely love the Gilchester flour I noticed that one or two people commented that it was much too wet. Can flour vary so much from day to day and batch to batch?  Once opened do they absorb humidity from the air even if  covered? Did I add too much rye?  Was doubling the recipe a no-no?

The English Gilchester flour would not be a strong as U.S. or Canadian strong bread flour.

We so much love this combination of flavour and texture that I would dearly love to hear if anyone has any ideas as to what might be going wrong and how I can correct it.

  Many thanks