Mix all ingredients in a bowl to form a slightly sticky batter. Cover well and let stand at room temperature for 12 to 18 hours. The dough should throw a lot of bubbles. It gets even stickier. Pull apart and fold the dough a few times. Dropping on a floured countertop, try folding the dough into a round or oval loaf. Place on a linen cloth generously sprinkled with wheat bran (or flour), sprinkle the dough with wheat bran and cover and let rise for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 250 ° C, placing a cast iron saucepan with a fire-proof lid in the middle of the oven until it is hot. It takes 20-30 minutes. Carefully take the hot pot out of the oven with potholders, tip the well-cooked bread dough upside down into the hot pot, put the lid on it and put it back in the oven. Bake with the lid closed for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
Take the bread out of the pot and let it cool down on a wire rack. The bread has a super crispy crust and a large-pored, juicy crumb.
Tips: The dough is difficult to shape, tends to spread and stick to the surface. That`s why I like to let it go in a loaf pan, which I smeared with oil beforehand and sprinkled with plenty of wheat bran so that nothing sticks. Then tip the risen dough upside down into the hot saucepan and bake. You can also simply bake the bread in the loaf pan. After rising, bake covered for 30 minutes (for example with aluminum foil) then bake uncovered for 15-20 minutes. The crust will not be quite as crispy, but it will also be pretty good.
The bread can stick to the bottom of the pot. Somehow you can get the bread out of the pan, but to avoid such stress, you should make sure that there is plenty of wheat bran or flour under the dough. You can also put baking paper on the bottom of the pot. You can also let the dough rise on baking paper and then put it in the pan along with the baking paper. But you can see the marks of the paper afterwards on the bread base and the crust becomes a little less crispy on the base.
Flour types can be varied as desired from white flour 405 to wholemeal flour. I like at least a few tablespoons of wholemeal flour in the dough, then the bread becomes a little more rustic and the crumb is even more juicy. But what I like best is half whole wheat flour and half normal light flour.
The fresh yeast can also be replaced with 1 g of dry yeast, which corresponds to ¼ teaspoon. It doesn`t seem like much, but it`s really enough.
For a pizza base, after 18 hours of rising, I knead 150 g of flour and 3-5 tablespoons of olive oil under the dough. Let rise for another hour and then bake lots of pizzas. The leftover dough can be baked into foccacia or put in the freezer bag in the refrigerator and lasts for several days.
As for the timing, I can only say that I always set the bread in the evening. If I want to have it for dinner, I put it in the early evening and bake it in the afternoon. If I want to eat it for breakfast, I put it on two days before bed and bake it the next evening so that I can eat it the following morning. The bread tastes good for several days, but it doesn`t last that long because it has been eaten beforehand.
So much for my personal experience with this recipe. It takes little work and can be varied easily.
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