Fold a clean kitchen towel to line the bottom of a large roasting pan.
Set the filled spring form pan onto the towel in the center of the roasting pan.
Place the roasting pan onto the second to the lowest rack in the preheated oven (250 F.)
Pour boiling water into the roasting pan around the spring form pan, until it comes 1 inch up the side of the pan, being cautious not to splash any water onto the filling.
Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes. Do not open the door of the oven, turn the light on, or otherwise peek at the cheesecake during this time–doing so will cause the oven temperature to fluctuate, and will affect the final results.
After an hour and ten minutes has passed, turn the oven off, and open the door to peek at the cheesecake and allow some of the heat to escape. The outer inch and a half of the cheesecake should look mostly set, with the interior being runny in appearance.
Close the oven door, and allow the cheesecake to set in the oven for an additional 62 minutes. The heat remaining in the walls of the oven and in the water surrounding the cheesecake will finish baking the filling. Again, don’t open the door and peek during this time.
At the end of the final hour, carefully remove the cheesecake from the roasting pan, open the foil (but don't remove) around the pan to let any water escape, and set the pan on a wire rack to cool for 1 hour. The center of the cake may still look a little jiggly, but so long as it doesn’t look like soup, this is fine. The custard will continue to set as it cools.
After an hour of cooling on the wire rack, finish removing the foil surrounding the spring form pan. Run a thin knife between the cheesecake and wall of the pan to ensure that the cake isn’t sticking to the sides. The cheesecake will pull away from the wall of the spring form pan as it cools. Set the pan in the refrigerator to cool overnight. Do not wrap the pan in any way, as steam will continue to escape during this time.