Yeah, you can definitely make it in a different shape!

Rye tends to absorb water more than all purpose flour, and so if you used a darker rye flour instead of the medium that I used, it would absorb even more water and be more dense. The recipe itself is a low hydration dough and is more stiff, I made the note about it being sticky for people who have never worked with rye flour before, and aren’t used to how it absorbs water.

Hi Bob! For this recipe, no. In order to ensure that the proper ratio of flour to water is achieved so you get the correct hydration of dough (and therefore consistency of the dough) and texture of the baked bread, the ingredients need to be weighed. If you are wanting sourdough recipes that are in cups you will find that almost all of my sourdough discard recipes and a few of my very beginner basic bread recipes have cup measurements. Otherwise I always give my sourdough bread recipes in weights because it is more accurate.

Can you translate measurements to volume quantities? IE, cups , Tablespons, etc.

This dough was stiff and not sticky I followed your directions. I felt like there was not enough water.