Warm water slightly. Water temperature should be a maximum of 110 degrees, if it exceeds this temperature it will kill the yeast.
Mix the flour and water together in a large bowl. Mix until everything is uniformly moist without dry patches. Kneading is unnecessary.
Cover and allow to rise, approximately 2 hours or until doubled. If you use cold water this rise time can double. Either way, longer rising times usually do not harm the result.
You can use a portion of dough anytime after this period. However, if you can refrigerate for three hours the dough will be easier to work with. Dough will keep in the refrigerator up to two weeks.
To bake refrigerated dough, sprinkle the surface of the dough with flour, pull up and cut off 1 lb of dough—about the size of a grapefruit, about 1 quarter of the dough.
Gently stretch the surface of the dough and round to the bottom on all four sides, rotating and dusting with flour as needed. This is called "chafing."
Preheat oven to 450 degrees (preferably with a baking stone. Place rimmed baking sheet anywhere else convenient into which you are able to pour water for steam. In the mean time, rest loaf on greased sheet, cornmeal sprinkled stone, or cornmeal sprinkled pizza peel and let rise 40 minutes.
Dust top of dough with flour and slash top with sharp knife.
Place bread on middle rack, pour 1 cup water into the rimmed cookie sheet on the bottom rack and close door. Bake 25-35 min., let cool a little before cutting into.
