3 cups bread flour
1/4 tsp fast-acting yeast
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
Mix all ingredients until shaggy dough forms. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm-room-temp location for 12-18 hours (this loaf got an 18 hour ferment, and it might be slightly over fermented, but my apartment runs 75+ degrees in the afternoons even in winter).
Turn onto a floured surface and let rest 15 minutes. Shape into a ball, place on a piece of floured parchment. Flour top of loaf and cover for 60-90 minutes.
Preheat oven to SCREAMING HOT (my dutch oven lid will only take up to 450, so 450 is what I used) with the dutch oven in the oven. Once bread is approximately double in size, remove pot from oven, place bread (parchment and all) in the pot, add the lid, put back in the oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake another 20-40 minutes or until deep brown and hollow sounding.
Cool on a wire rack.
Once it’s done cooling, I’ll eat half the loaf and we’ll see if I get sick. The dough smelled and tasted just like the sourdough I made with my friend in San Francisco last fall, so I’m hopeful.