Don't let the fact that this bread has steps or "sections" to it scare you off. The pre-soaker, soaker, and biga each only take a few minutes each to pull together, and then you let them sit for hours on their own before moving on. It looks like you'd have to start days in advance, but really you don't.
For me, it took 2 days, but most of that time was unattended. It went something like this:
Day 1
- 7:00 am - combine ingredients for pre-soaker and allow to sit at room temperature. Combine ingredients for Biga into a ball that resembled wet sand, but held together; cover and refrigerate.
- 8:30 pm - puree pre-soaker ingredients together, then combine that with the rest of the soaker ingredients until they form a "moist" ball (which I found oddly pleasing).
