Sometime between 6-8am the day before you want to bake your loaf: remove your starter from the fridge to let it come up to room temperature. If your starter is young or hasn’t been fed within the last week, feed it once now to start activating it. If your starter is well established and has been used within the last week, you can just let it sit out and come to room temperature before feeding in the next step.

Sometime between 11am-12pm: feed your starter (instructions in notes below if you aren’t familiar with how to feed your starter).

Sometime between 5-6pm: measure out 1 cup of your active starter and pour into a large mixing bowl. Add all remaining ingredients and stir well to combine. The dough will be wet and shaggy. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature, ideally in the warmest spot in your house. Place your starter back into the fridge for storage.

Let dough rise for 4 hours, performing three sets of ‘stretch and folds’, about once an hour. So, if you made your dough at 6pm, do a set of stretch and folds around 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm. To do this: wet your hands and reach down under one side of the dough, pulling it up (‘stretch’), and dropping it back down on top of itself (fold). Turn the bowl a quarter turn and do another stretch and fold; turn again and do another; turn again and do another, until you have done the stretch-and-fold on all four sides of the dough.

Sometime between 9-10pm (or four hours after you’ve made your dough), shape your dough: sprinkle the top of the dough with a handful of flour, lift up and place flour-side down in the bowl, and roll up like a log. Use as much flour as needed to make the dough easy to handle, but know that it’s okay if it’s a little sticky.

Generously dust your banneton with flour (if you have one) or line a medium-sized bowl with a thin, clean kitchen towel, then dust it generously with flour. Note that this is going to essentially ruin that towel, but you can keep reusing it over and over again for every loaf you bake. You can also line a bowl with parchment paper and very generously dust your loaf with flour before placing it in, if you don’t want to ruin a towel.

Roll your dough into a log again, this time in the opposite direction (starting from the short end), then lift the dough up out of the mixing bowl and place it in your floured banneton (or other option) seam-side up, then use your fingers to pinch the seam together if it looks a bit rough and craggy.

Cover (with a towel, beeswrap, plastic, etc) and place in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, sometime between 8-10am, preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Once your oven is preheated, remove the dough from the fridge and invert it on top of the parchment lined sheet pan. Using a sharp kitchen knife (I find serrated knives are best for this), a razor blade, or a lame, quickly slice a few cuts into the top of your loaf. You can just do an X or plus sign across the middle, a few curved half-moons, or do a quick youtube search for ‘bread scoring’ and see all the fun options out there. Even if you just cut one line down the center, don’t skip this step! Scoring your loaf helps guide the direction it rises in, and usually helps it get taller when it bakes.

Immediately transfer your loaf to the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 450, then reduce the temperature to 375 and continue baking for another 25-30 minutes, or until deeply golden.

This step is the worst, but: let your loaf cool completely (or as close to it as you can get!) before slicing! Once cool, store in a bag/sealed container at room temperature for 3-5 days, or slice and freeze for up to 3 months.