Add the active starter and water to a large bowl and mix until well-distributed.
Add the flour and, using a dough whisk and/or your hands, mix to form a shaggy dough.
Cover with a tea towel and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.
While the dough is resting, soak the apricots in enough warm water to fully cover them. Once soaked, drain and roughly chop.
Next, add salt and mix to incorporate. Add the soaked apricots and anise, and use your hands mix again.
Stretch and fold the dough a total of six times, once every 30 minutes over a total of three hours.
Dust a banneton with flour and set aside.
Shape into a boule, dusting with flour as needed. Try to keep the apricots from poking through the surface tension of the dough, tucking them under when needed.
Once shaped, turn the loaf into the banneton, seam-side up. Sprinkle flour over the loaf before covering with a towel.
Transfer the shaped loaf into the refrigerator to rest overnight.
Day of Baking
Place a dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 260°C (500°F). After the oven has come to temperature, let the dutch oven continue to preheat for another 30 minutes.
Once preheated, take bread out of the refrigerator. Gently invert the dough onto a piece of parchment paper (seam side down) that is large enough to lift your bread into and out of the dutch oven.
Score the bread with a sharp knife or bread lame.
Using oven mitts, carefully remove the hot dutch oven. Remove the lid, then quickly and carefully lift the dough into the pot using the edges of the parchment paper as handles. Using oven mitts, carefully place the lid back on the dutch oven and put the vessel back into the oven.
Reduce oven temperature to 230°C (450°F) and bake for 25 minutes.
Carefully remove the lid (be careful of steam) and bake for another 20-25 minutes with the lid off, or until the bread is golden to dark brown (depending on preference) and crusty.
Using the parchment paper as handles, transfer the bread from the dutch oven to a wire rack. Cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into it, at least 4 hours.
Notes
If heat makes it too difficult to extract the dough and parchment layer safely, just let the loaf cool in the Dutch oven—don't risk burning yourself.