9 C. water
4 1/2 TB yeast
4 1/2 TB kosher salt
19 1/2 C. flour
Warm the water to 100 degrees. Put water in a large food grade plastic tub with a lid (not air tight). Add yeast and salt and stir to dissolve. It doesn't have to dissolve all the way. Add the flour all at once. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands until the flour is uniformly moist- the is no need to knead the bread. Cover with a lid that is not air tight and allow it to set for 2 hours or until it begins to collapse. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours- overnight is perferable.
On baking day:
Prepare a pizza peel or a wooden cutting board by sprinkling it with cornmeal or flour. Sprinkle the dough with flour and pull and cut off a 1 lb. piece of dough. Gently stretch the surface of the dough by pulling it into a ball and tucking the edges under. Place on the pizza peel and allow to rest for 40 minutes. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven with 450 degrees with a backing stone placed on the middle rack and a broiler pan placed on the shelf below. After the 40 minute resting time, dust the top of the load with flour and slash a 1/4" cuts through the top in any desired pattern. Throw the dough onto the hot pizza stone. Carefully pour 1 C. hot water in the broiler pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Store the remaining dough in the refrigerator for up to 14 days. Dough can also be frozen in 1 lb. loaf portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator.
Mommy found this recipe in the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. This is the master batch tripled. It will store in the refrigerator for 14 days and it gets more sour as time goes by. Mix up the next batch in the same container with the left over dough to help it sour sooner. Daddy LOVES this bread! This is all time favorite bread!
Love Always,
Mommy
