In a large bowl put 7 cups of flour, 2 tsps of salt and 1 tbsp of yeast. Add 3-4 cups of warm water and mix with a spoon until you have a loose dough. You need only mix until all of the flour is moistened, no kneading. Loosely cover and allow to rise until about doubled, 3-5 hours. The dough may fall, but that is ok. Cover the bowl of dough and store in the fridge for up to 7 days.
When ready to bake, remove the bowl of dough from the fridge. Sprinkle the top of the dough heavily with flour. Also take a plate and cover it with flour as well. Take the amount of dough out of the bowl, I use a large spoon to scoop it our and take a lump of dough a little bigger than a large grapefruit. Roll it on the place of flour, then using your hands, stretch it around and around, forming a tight ball that is covered with flour all the way around. I line a bowl with a piece of parchment paper and then place the ball of dough in it for rising. If you are wanting to bake rolls, for small balls of dough about the size of a baseball and place on a baking sheet that is lined with a sheet of parchment paper. Place either the loaf or the rolls in a warm place, cover with a dry towel to rise for about an hour. about 20 minutes before it is ready to go in the oven, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. And, if making the loaf, place an empty metal pan on the bottom or lowest rack of the oven and a heavy metal cookie sheet or pizza stone on the middle rack.
When you are ready to back the rolls, place about 3 cups of ice cubed in the heated pan and slide the cookie sheet with the rolls onto the middle rack. Quickly close oven door and set the oven timer to 30 minutes. At 30 minutes check to see if the rolls are well browned, if not, leave them there another 10-15 minutes until as brown as you wish. When browned, remove from oven and place on rack to cool completely. Do not try to eat until they are completely cold.
If baking a loaf, when dough is ready to go into the oven, remove the heated cookie sheet and slide the parchment paper with the dough ball gently onto the baking sheet or onto the pizza stone. Return to oven and add the ice cubes (like for the rolls) to the heated pan. Quickly close the oven door and allow to bake 45-60 minutes. The loaf will probably crack and will also sound hollow when tapped. If the loaf is not as brown as you wish, allow to continue baking until it is as brown as you wish. When done, remove from oven and cool on a rack until completely cold before slicing. This is very important.
Another option for baking a loaf and one I prefer to the above method. When you turn on the oven to preheat, place a large cast iron dutch oven or enameled iron dutch over with lid into the oven and reheat. When ready to bake the bread, remove the dutch oven from the oven and remove the lid. Gently slide the parchment paper containing the ball of risen dough into the Dutch oven, cover with lid and return to the oven. Bake for 45 minutes covered, then remove the lid and allow to continue baking until nicely browned, another 15-20 minutes. The loaf will split and crack, that is ok. When done, remove from the oven and allow to cool on a rack like above. Once again, do not cut the loaf until it is completely cooled.
When you have used most of the dough in the bowl, reserve about 1 1/2 cups of the dough, then mix it together with flour, salt and water like in the original recipe. This will be the leavening for the next batch of dough. Eventually, it will start to taste a lot like a sourdough and get even better as time passes. If you wish to do a whole grain bread, just substitute your favorite whole grain flour for about 1/3 of the white flour, although with whole wheat flour you can use up to about 3/4 whole wheat to white.
