1: In bread-making, the water temperature is always important. It's not a fixed value, but related to 3 other temperatures: 1) the temperature of your flour, 2) the room temperature in your kitchen, and 3) the basic temperature of this recipe, which is 56-60°C. You can calculate the temperature of the water for this recipe in one click, using this small calculator.
3: Cover with a plastic sheet and let stay for 1 hour.
4: After this time, add 18 g salt, 250 g leaven and 7 g yeast. Knead for about 10 minutes, ideally dough should be at the end of kneading at 73°F (23°C), or better try the window-pane test.
5: Put the dough, roughly shape in ball, in a plastic container, covered with a plastic sheet, and let stay for 1h30.
6: After this time, pour the dough on your working surface...
7: ...and scale pieces of 300 grams. Note: if you plan to make half-size baguettes, you should scale 150g pieces instead.
8: Shape pieces of dough in balls, like in this short video on the right.
9: Let stay dough lumps on your working surface for 15 minutes, covered with a plastic sheet.
10: From lumps, shape baguettes as shown in this video.
11: If you use baguettes moulds, put lumps directly in, cover with plastic sheets and let stay for 1 hour.
12: If you don't have moulds, put lumps on floured linen, then cover with plastic sheets and let stay for 1 hour.
13: Preheat your oven at 460°F (240°C), slash top of lumps...
14: ...and put in the oven for about 20 minutes. Note: As when baking any bread, you should ensure that the oven is filled with steam for the first 15 minutes of baking. This page shows you how; it really is the secret of golden-brown, crusty loaves..
15: You will really appreciate the very light crumb and the crunch of the crust...
16: ...of good French baguettes.
Remarks
You can make baguettes as for other bread: plain or with different flours, or with added seeds, grains, etc. If you want more information about making your own bread, you can look at this dedicated page.