I'm a newbie to the bread making hobby, and so far have made a basic rustic / pugliese type bread a few times using an overnight "biga" starter. The breads always come out very tasty, good crust, etc, but the dough is just unbelievably sticky! Kneading is almost impossible, and I end up with about a half inch of dough coating my hands up the wrists every time I touch the dough. My wife just thinks the whole show of me trying to get it off my hands is hysterical. I do use a little flour / greased bowl per the recipe, but it seems I would have to add way too much dry flour to really solve this problem. Is there another way?

Any tips are appreciated, even to just let me know this is the way it's supposed to be.

Cheers