No-Knead Bread

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I have been making the most amazing bread for some time using Jim Lahey's No-Knead technique.  Jim is the owner of the Sullivan Street bakery in Hell's Kitchen http://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/ and he devised this technique for the home baker.  If you haven't tried this you need to, I cannot believe I am able to make the breads I have been making by using this technique.  For years I have tried to get a good crust and that wonderful holey, chewy crumb by baking on a pizza stone and spraying water on the dough, spraying water into the bottom of the hot oven, etc without success.  

The technique uses a very wet dough using very little yeast and an extremely long fermentation.  The bread is then baked in a dutch oven.  The dutch oven creates a micro climate in which the bread bakes in an environment of very high humidity which mimics commercial ovens that are steam injected and creates an amazing crust.  The long fermentation of 18 hours or more coupled with very little yeast creates a situation where time does the work of kneading for you.  I feel really strongly about this technique so I have included what is, perhaps, too many pictures but I don't want to leave any important information out.  I have made this many ways; using different flours, substituting warm beer for the water, etc and it has never let me down.  

Here is a video where he explains and demonstrates the technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU&feature=channel%29

Here's the basic recipe.

3 cups of flour (I use bread flour)
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon instant dry yeast
1 5/8 cups water

Measure the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Add the water and mix until it all comes together into a wet dough.

It will look something like this when it comes together.

Cover the bowl with Saran wrap and let ferment (rise) for 18 hours or more in a reasonably warm place, our kitchen is right at about 70 degrees which makes a 20 hour rise just about perfect.  After the rise it will look like this.

Turn it out onto a floured surface dusting with just enough flour to keep it from sticking.  Pat it out and then fold it a couple of times like he does in the video then place it seam side down onto a well-floured towel to rise again until doubled, anywhere from two to four hours.

Put your dutch oven in the oven preheat to 425 degrees, Jim Lahey says to bake at 500 degrees or more, however in my oven 425 works better and it will only get 212 degrees inside the dutch oven anyway due to the amount of moisture migrating out of the dough as steam.  When the oven has preheated put the dough seam side up (I screwed up here and placed it seam side down which makes a more uniformly round loaf) into the dutch oven, place the lid on the dutch oven, and bake for 30 minutes.  

After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake for another 25 to 30 minutes until nicely browned.

Here is how it looks while it is cooling.  As you can see this loaf is pretty uniformly round due to my baking the dough seam side down, had I baked it seam side up it would have resulted in a more rustic looking loaf with nice cracks on top but I got in a hurry and screwed up.  Tastes the same, though.

Allow it to cool and then slice and here is what you get.  A wonderful crumb that is full of holes and very chewy with great flavor and a crunchy delicious crust.  This bread is better than any I have ever bought anywhere.  I am still amazed that I can bake bread that is this good.