In a large mixing bowl weigh your yeast, add the water and mix together until the yeast is dissolved.

Next add the flour and salt.

Mix everything with your dough scraper until it comes together into a rough dough and then turn it out onto a clean table. Knead your dough well for 8 minutes. Then, shape it into a ball, place it back into the bowl to rest with a cloth on top for 1 ½ - 2 hours.

Use your dough scraper to turn the dough out onto a lightly dusted table. Make sure the dough comes out of the bowl upside down, sicky side up.

Use your fingertips lightly to flatten the dough just enough to make the next part easy. With finger and thumb pick up an edge of the dough furthest from you, lift it, and fold it over the dough almost to the other side. Then turn the dough slightly and do the same. Keep turning and folding, working your way round the dough enough times to end up with a bouncy ball of dough. All the seams and joins should end up on one side, and the underside should be smooth and tight. Roll it over bringing the smooth side to the top, dust lightly with flour and rest on the table under a proving cloth for 15 minutes.

Lightly grease a 2lb loaf tin with oil or butter.

Remove the cloth from the top of your dough. The ball of dough should have relaxed and spread slightly. Slide your dough scraper underneath to unstick it from the table and flip upside down onto a lightly dusted surface.

Press once again, this time firmly, with fingertips and knuckles to push the dough flat into a circle. Slide your fingers, palms up, underneath each side of the dough. Grip the dough and pull to stretch the dough sideways. At an angle fold one side two thirds of the way over the dough and the other side the same so that it ends up overlapping the first fold and you have a kind of capitol A shape. Then roll the dough from the pointy edge towards you into a tight sausage. Squeeze up the seam to stick together.

Drop your loaf into it’s tin seam side down and place directly in the fridge uncovered.

I leave my loaf in the fridge for between 14 and 16 hours at this point. Your loaf will tick over nicely overnight, puffing up slowly. The speed of the puff depends firstly on the temperature of the dough in the beginning and the temperature of the fridge.

Preheat your oven to 190°C Fan/374°F/Gas Mark 6 with a deep tray on the bottom shelf. Boil half a kettle of water.

Take a look at your loaf, if it’s puffy like mine you can bake it straight from the fridge. If it’s looking a little sad or you think it can go a little further, leave it out on the side for a while until the oven preheats to give it a booster, or longer if you need to.

When you’re ready load your bread into the oven, tip the hot water into the tray beneath (be careful!) and close the oven door.

Bake your loaf for 40 minutes at it will take on some good colour on the top crust. When it is done pop it out of the tin and feel the underside. Mine is normally ok because I bake everything on a stone, but if your loaf soft and steamy underneath, return it to the oven without the tin for a further 5-10 minutes.

Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing carefully for an EPIC sandwich.