How To Make Bagels

PFirst time I’m on here and don,t know how to comment without linking to someone. So please forgive me!
Summary first: Bagels were really really fine. Best I’ve had in years and I,m 87.

Made 9 white flour bagels using quantities half of the 18 recipe. Added 50 grams sour dough starter. Mixed the dough in 12 cup Cuisinart using ice water. Dough came out great and same apparent stiffness as in video. Followed directions exactly but found that when forming bagels the over-the-hand method did not work too well because the dough didn’t want to stick together. Seemed a little too stiff. So formed bagels around little Pyrex custard cup and overlapped ends on pressed together. Seemed to adhere OK though overlap was always visible. Used a drop of water on finger tip to help adhesion.
Went through rest of procedure as outlined and all bagels developed into almost perfect bagel shapes when baked.
Wow, I said, as I devoured my first one and so did all the guest who tried them. THanks, Eric. Do you think I should use a little more water to soften th dough to improve adhesion. Frank ([email protected])

Hi Frank,

Congrats on your bagel success! It does sound like a moister dough would have made it easier to get the ends to stick together. If you run into that again, you can also take your individual balls of bagel dough and flatten them out to form a thick disk of dough, then poke a hole in the middle and form them into their bagel shapes. That way there are no ends to join at all.

But if the dough is so stiff that it’s difficult to get the ends to join, the dough is probably too stiff, so you might as well just try increasing the hydration next time.

Eric
Could you supply a rough estimate for how long to leave the bagels in the ice bath?
Thanks
Fred

In most of the discussions that I have read about bagels there is some notice that bagels are better with high gluten flour which is 16-17 % protein but is not readily available at the corner grocery store. Therefore we are doomed to making bagels with bread flour (about 13% protein). However, Bob’s Red Mill (BRM) markets a very high gluten product (75% protein) that is sometimes used as a meat substitute in recipes. It is available at Kroger’s, Whole Foods, Publix and most well-stocked local grocery stores. I have used this product blended with your recipe with very good results. The math for the adjustment follows.

In 838 grams bread flour we have 838 x .13 = 109 grams protein whereas we need to have close to 838 x .17 = 142.5 grams protein. We’re 34.5 grams short of the high gluten range. Thus we need to add about 34 / .75 = 45.3 grams of BRM Gluten flour to our recipe. However, to keep the hydration right, we need to substitute the BRM for some of the flour instead of just adding it to the bread flour. The adjustment to make then would be 838 - 45 = 793 grams bread flour and 45 grams BRM. This will yield 793 x .13 = 103 grams protein from the bread flour plus 45 x .75 = 34 grams protein from the BRM, a total of 137 grams protein, or 16.3 % of 838 grams, well within the high gluten range.

Thus the ingredient list is:

793 grams bread flour
45 grams Bob’s Red Mill Gluten flour
486 grams water
17 grams salt
5 grams instant yeast (or 6.3 grams active dry yeast or 6 grams Bioreal organic yeast)
5 grams diastatic barley malt powder

Likewise, one can make the adjustments for adding sourdough leaven, (though every sourdough content may be different):

200 grams leaven (110 grams water + 90 grams flour)
703 grams bread flour
45 grams Bob’s Red Mill Gluten flour
376 grams water
17 grams salt
5 grams instant yeast (or 6.3 grams active dry yeast or 6 grams Bioreal organic yeast)
5 grams diastatic barley malt powder

I have done it both ways and the product with the sourdough definitely tastes better!

“Rough” is about all I’m good for on this subject. A few minutes seems to work well. I haven’t tested to see if much shorter or much longer makes a difference.

HI Eric,

I enjoyed your videos on making bagels. I have used Daniel Leader’s recipe for bagels in his book, “Simply Great Breads”. I was interested in the fact that you didn’t add baking soda to the water in which you boiled the bagels. I have found this helps the chewy crust. By the way, the bialys in Leader’s book are great, too. Made my Brooklyn (NY) born father cry!

Thanks,
Neal

Delicious! I used half organic KAF bread flour and half red spring wheat that I ground and sifted once (#40). I also used some rye sourdough measured in with the water. Still warm, they were delicious, but the crumb became denser and crust a bit chewier as they cooled. Perfect!

Can these be made without the dry yeast and only sourdough starter?

Sure. Sourdough starter isn’t as fast acting, so you’ll need to allow more time for proofing.

First of all, thank you for such an easy way to make bagels! I learned how to make sourdough with your tutorials and now bagels! The bagels came out perfect, the toppings were great and my kids love them!

One question for you. I used the high protein bread flour, not sifted, and I was wondering if you knew how many grams of protein, on average, the bagels have. My bagels ended up being 112 grams in weight prior to cooking.

Thank you!

I baked these for the first time this morning! They were AMAZING! I made the one dozen recipe with all white. So far, the best bagel recipe I’ve made. My family loved them! There are only 4 left! I will try them in the future with the bolted wheat as well! Thank you for this recipe!

Do you know roughly how much more time would be needed if only using starter and no commercial yeast? I’m thinking something like 3x - 4x more time proofing before they are put in the fridge.

Wow… my first epic Breadtopia fail. I am so disappointed.

Using all the ingredients from the Breadtopia kit, I ran into several problems.

The dough seemed very wet yesterday before shaping, not stiff as described. I measured out everything in grams with digital scale.

They seemed overproved overnight from fridge and did get misshapen when removing from the well floured, semolina dusted pan.

They expanded like crazy in the boiling water (didn’t sink at all) and then didn’t cook in oven… yikes. Gooey bricks. Uncooked inside and burned outside even at 14 min.

I boiled them for about a minute but didn’t use a timer, you seemed to be a little loose about that—could a too long boil kill the yeast and not make spring in oven?

How long should they be in Icebath before going into oven? I just had them in long enough to get the first 9 boiled. I rested them on a baking rack to allow excess water to drain before adding toppings.

Sadly, I am a lover of Ess-a-bagel. Maybe I just need to drive to NY…

HELP!

Eric,

I have tried to make your bagels twice now with little success. Both times I think they have possibly been overproved and when they go into the water to boil, they fluff up nicely and then collapse into slimy pancakes. Is there any chance you can suggest a rough timespan for each stage as I think I’m leaving them too long after taking them out the fridge in the morning as they hadn’t risen much after an hour. Also I’m in the UK and I don’t know where to get high protein flour so I’m just using strong bread flour. Is this possibly part of the problem too? I’m struggling to attach photos to this post to show what going wrong as says files too big

Hi Jane,

What you describe does indeed sound like over proofing. It’s hard to get more specific than what’s in the tutorial with regard to proofing times since even a few degrees difference in room temp or 1-2 degrees difference in refrigerator temp can make a pretty big difference in overall proofing times. So much of bread baking is reliant on visual cues which can take time (ie trial and error) to learn to read. In the case of the long and multi step process of making bagels, it can be aggravating going through repeated fails. I can’t even venture a guess as to how much to tell you to cut back on proofing times and at what stage. As for the type of flour used, your strong bread flour is fine to use.

Some resources to make image files smaller.

http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

https://resizeimage.net/

I made these bagels today, as written. I did not use the starter or bolted flour, though I will give it a try in the near future. I am in love with these bagels. They turned out fantastic. I have tried a few other recipes, but I like this one the best, thus far. I am in the process of nursing a starter and as soon as it is ready, I will be trying that version as well. Thanks, and the bagel boards are a game changer.

Eric, just wanted to thank you again for the Bagel Recipe. It has always produced superior results for me…Here is the result this morning (along with some Sourdough bread loaves). My family can’t get enough of these bagels, It it was up to them, I would be making bagels every weekend.

Thanks again!

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@Kevscott I’ve never made bagels before but your photo here inspired me to look at the recipe and I’m so doing this for the holiday breakfast where my family usually has bagels and lox.

I’m curious, have you or @eric ever made them without the overnight cold proof. I’m an early riser, holiday breakfasts in my house can be quite late, and my refrigerator tends to be very full this time of year.

So, I was thinking I could use a hefty amount of sourdough starter for flavor, but do everything the same morning with a 1-1.5 hour room temp final proof. I calculated that for 18 bagels, I’ll need about 5 hours (being generous and ambitious at the same time lol): 30 min measure and mix, 1 hour first rise, 30 min roll/shape, 1.5 hour second proof, 1.5 hour two rounds of boil and bake).

Hi Melissa,

I’ve never tried them without the overnight slow proof, and I would certainly defer to Eric as the master of making bagels. But I wouldn’t hesitate to give your plan a try. I have tried these both with and out the addition of the starter. They were great both ways. The overnight proof is a flavor development step that really adds to the flavor profile (I do it with my breads too).

I would suggest you use the Yeast that Eric Specifies (Bioreal Organic), I think its fantastic and I believe it enhances the the flavor of anything you use it for. I use it now for all my “yeast” baking projects, preferring it over any of the brands available at the local food markets.

Be sure to post your results, I’d love to hear about your experience.