To a medium bowl add: 788g bread flour. 17g salt and 4g instant yeast.
Mix up the dry ingredients.
Then add: 591g water.
Mix the dough with your hands until all the flour has been hydrated.
Then put the dough on your kitchen counter and perform some slap and folds until the dough comes together. Then put the dough in a see-through container and level the top of the dough.
Proof and retard the dough
Mark the top of the dough with a white board marker and let the dough grow to almost 100%.
Then put the dough in the refrigerator for at least 8, but up to 72 hours.
Divide and shape the dough
When ready to bake, grab the dough from the fridge and pour it onto the kitchen counter. Don’t let it come up to temperature.
Divide the dough into two equally sized pieces. Shape each piece into a loose ball with your bench scraper.
Then let the dough rest for 20 minutes to relax the gluten.
Then final-shape both dough balls. I recommend that you watch the video at the bottom where I give a tutorial on how to shape a round bread (boule) and a bâtard (cigar-shaped).
Place the final shaped doughs in bannetons.
Prepare bread for baking
Heat your oven to 260°C/500°F with a baking steel (or pizza stone) and a dutch oven inside. Let it heat for an hour.
When the hour is up, grab the first dough. Dust the bottom with rice flour to avoid sticking to the peel, and flip it onto the peel.
Dust the top with rice flour for a cool look, then score the bread. Put the bread into the dutch oven.
Bake the bread
Add the lid on the top and bake for 20 minutes.
When the 20 minutes are up, remove the lid and turn the oven down to 230°C/450°F.
Bake for 20-25 minutes more until the bread is to your liking.
Take the bread out of the oven, and let it cool on a wire rack.