Add your water and active starter to a bowl and mix together. It should look milky.
368g filtered water, 125g Active sourdough starter
Add flour and mix with a dough whisk. Let dough sit for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes come back and add in 25g of water and 12g of salt. Mix in with hands, squishing the dough in between your fingers. Don't knead just incorporate the salt into the dough. Let dough rest for 30 minutes. 500g All purpose flour
Perform 4 stretch and folds over the course of 2 hours (about every 15-30 minutes). To do a stretch and fold wet your hands and grab the dough closest to the side of the bowl and pull upwards to stretch then place down and across on the dough. Turn the bowl a quarter turn then repeat the stretch and fold until you've done 4-6 for that set. See youtube video for full explanation of this if you need further guidance.
After the stretch and folds allow the dough to rise (also known as bulk fermentation time) for 8 hours. Rise time depends on temperature. Can be anywhere from 6-10 hours.
After the bulk fermentation, flour a clean surface and turn dough out onto the floured surface. Press air bubbles out of dough, flattening the dough. Then fold in the long edges of the dough into the center and starting on the short end of the dough roll up the dough into a ball. Next you will build tension in the dough by pushing and pulling it with your hands. While I'm pushing and pulling I also move the dough around in little circles.
Flour a banneton basket lined with a tea towel or the insert they come with. Place your dough seam side up in the banneton, meaning bottom up. Use a bench scraper for this. It makes that transfer easier.
Place the basket in a plastic grocery store bag, tie the ends of the bag together. Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours, but I usually do overnight.
When you're ready to bake preheat your oven to 500° with a dutch oven with the lid on. After it's preheated get a sheet or parchment paper ready. Plop dough onto parchment paper, dust some flour over top, using a sharp razor blade score the bread. I do a simple score of going along the side, but you can get creative with this part.
Get the pre-heated dutch oven out of the oven, pick up the parchment paper and transfer the dough into the dutch oven. Place lid on dutch oven and bake for 25 minutes. Take off lid and reduce oven heat to 450° bake for another 20 minutes. Allow to cool fully (1-2 hours) before slicing into.
