Despite an incrementally higher flour:water ratio, and a shitload more yeast, this new recipe is a lot like the old one if you doubled it: 6 1/2 cups of flour, 3 cups of water, 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt, 1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast. The process is slightly different as well: you start by dissolving the salt and yeast in the water (which should be about body temperature), then add your flour (and whatever you've mixed into it -- here I did 5 1/2 cups of regular flour, and 1 cup of cornmeal, which is why my dough is yellow in the picture; the cornmeal helped it match what I was eating (cubano braised chicken), and gave it a bit of extra heft.) Whatever you mix into it, the end product looks basically like what you start off with if you're working by the old system.
The surprises start about 2 hours later, when you have this -- which under the old system, you wouldn't get in less than a full 24 hours, if you were lucky. I reckon that in that time it more than doubled in volume. Just like that, this stuff is primed and ready to go.
At this point you can subdivide the dough up into usable portions, some for now and some to save for later. (You can also just whack off what you're going to use immediately, and save the rest in one big lump.) Here I broke it down into six roughly equal loves, two of which I was going to use immediately, so I cut some decorative slashes into them with a sharp knife.
The rest I wrapped up in plastic wrap, and stowed them in a storage bag in the fridge. Word of warning on this: wrap them loosely in the plastic wrap, and don't seal the storage bag all the way. These babies will flatten out a bit as you work with them, and then they'll expand again in the fridge, popping through the saran wrap and the bag if you seal them too tight. Trust me on this: I speak from experience.
That's by far one of the coolest things about this new system: you can store your dough, either in a lump or in smaller chunks, in the fridge for (they say) up to two weeks. So far I've found the results have actually been better after it's been in the fridge for a while, rather than when it's used right away. I find the cold dough is both easier to work with, and holds its shape better. One thing with the old recipe was that I always ended up with a large, sort of amorphous boule, and the dough would flop all around as you tried to put it into the baking pot. Not so with this stuff: You can make it into nicely rounded loaves. I've found I like to make them smaller and a bit more oblong than the boules I got with the old recipe: you get a bit higher crust:bread ratio, and you can bake only what you're going to use, rather than making a loaf twice as big as you need and having it stale up on you by the next day. These one-sixth-of-a-batch-loaves ended up coming out about the size of my hand. If you had a baking stone (I'm just using my trusty Dutch oven -- more on that below) I don't see why you couldn't shape this stuff into a baguette, or any other shape, if you wanted to.
Second rising is about the same as in the old system: anywhere from 30 min (if you're using the dough fresh) or 1:00 - 1:30 if you're using it from the fridge. This is another great way this recipe gives you a bit more control: the longer you let it rise after taking it out of the fridge, the airier your crumb structure will be. If you're going to use it for sandwiches, say, and don't want huge bubbles inside the loaf, don't let it rise for too long before throwing it into the oven.
Baking time is also shorter: I find that about 28 minutes at 450 works perfectly. They recommend you use a baking stone; I don't have one, but I do have an enameled cast-iron dutch oven (what can't you cook in that thing?) which has so far proved to be a great substitute. The only real difference in baking technique, then, is that you leave the lid off the dutch oven the whole time. To help the crust form, you instead give it a steam bath by heating another small metal pan or dish inside the oven when during the preheating phase, and toss in a cup of hot water after putting the loaf in -- just be sure to close your oven door quick to help trap the steam. And no opening it up to peek!
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