6 cups white flour (may substitute 1 cup with whole wheat flour)
½ teaspoon instant yeast
2 ½ teaspoons salt
Mix this by hand in large bowl. Add 3 ½ cups of water and mix until well combined. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise 12-18 hours.
Flour the counter top and dump the dough out onto it. Fold it over, cut in half, and place inside a bread pan that is lined with a clean cloth. Cover with the edges of the cloth. Let rise until doubled (usually a few hours).
Preheat oven to 450 degrees with a Dutch oven (or any oven-safe pan with a lid), inside the oven while it’s preheating. Once it’s preheated take the dough out of the bread pan, using the towel to flip it into the hot, heated dish.
Bake 35 minutes with the lid on and 10 minutes more with the lid off.
Take out of oven and cool out of the baking dish.
A favorite variation is to chop fresh rosemary, maybe 3 or 4 sprigs if you do the whole recipe of dough, and 1 1/2 heads of garlic into small chunks, and mix in with the dry ingredients. Then when the dough is in the heated pan, sprinkle kosher salt on top before baking.