Thanks for sharing your tips about the flavor enhancement and the yeast. I have Saf Active, Saf Instant and Bioreal (…that full fridge I mentioned lol).
I’ll play around with my timing and let you know how it goes.
1 Like
From those photos, it’s apparent to me that I ain’t got nuthin on ya, Kev. Wow, nice. Reminds me that I HAVE to get some more going asap. I think I see some Yecora Rojo flour bagels in my near future. Melissa, the overnight proof makes a difference but, imo, not enough miss out altogether if you can’t work it in.
Okay, I’ll see what kind of refrigerator-Tetris I can do, but I also won’t worry if I have to do everything at room temperature. Thanks : )
Finally getting around to making bagels; I made bagels once with a friend about 20 years ago and had great success. They were a homely lot, but quite delicious. The dough for the current crop is rising in a bowl. They are half bolted, sprouted hard red spring wheat (Breadtopia, of course) and half bread flour.
I do not have bagel boards. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to bake them without boards? For instance, should I flip them in the oven after a few minutes? Seems like it might be tricky. Should I bake them on a cookie sheet, and not bother to flip?
Any advice is welcome!
I haven’t tried this method because I do have boards, but you might give it a go. The explanation is in the comments, which I screenshot for you.
Thanks Melissa! I have a silpat somewhere in a box in the basement…will try this.
I have made 3 batches in the last few months and in general have been happy with them. Our local bagel place is closed due to the coronavirus and our freezer supply was getting depleted, so I took on the challenge and learned I liked the process.
I don’t have bagel boards. I have a Fibrament stone that I heat to 450F (checked with an infrared). I have a pizza peel (about the width of the stone) that I cover with a piece of parchment. After I boil the bagels and put the toppings on, I put them on the peel (topping side up) that I then slide onto the stone. I can only comfortably fit about 6 or 8, so it means two batches. I do not flip them, but I do rotate the parchment half way through. (The bagels I make are on the small side: 95g of dough each.)
I suppose I could try flipping them by sliding the parchment back onto the peel half way through, removing from the oven, flipping them and returning the oven. (All that so as to not leave the oven door open.) So far I haven’t felt the need to try that.
In an effort to bake them all at one, once I tried preheating a baking sheet on the bottom rack, under the stone, and slid a few bagels on parchment on it, just to see. They didn’t bake nearly as nicely. The stone really adds something.
I learned the hard way a few years ago that the biggest mistake I could make was to overproof them! They completely deflated when boiling, and never recovered. So, as usual, better to underproof than overproof!
1 Like
Thanks Arlo, this helps a lot, especially knowing that your bagels are turning out well despite not being flipped.
I posted already in the Bakers’ Gallery, but wanted to post here too - followed this recipe using half-bread flour, half-sprouted hard red spring wheat (from Breadtopia) that I milled fresh in my Mockmill 100 (from Breadtopia) and bolted/sifted with a 40 mesh screen (from Breadtopia, obviously!). I made 9 in total – four with sesame or poppy seeds, the rest plain. I think I like the plain ones the best. But overall – these were fantastic, and I will definitely make these again.
My husband said these are the best bagels he’s ever tasted. Not too shabby!
1 Like
Hi Eric!
Sorry if you’ve already talked about this option, but since my fridge is small, I can’t proof shaped bagels on trays overnight.
So, I’m wondering if you’ve tried something like mixing the final dough in the evening, letting rise an hour at room temp, then BULK fermentation overnight in the fridge, followed by shaping in the morning?
I’m pretty sure it will work, especially with a starter slurry as you do, but maybe a little less yeast to retard things further?
Anyway, just curious what your take would be. Thanks for all the good work!
Holly
Toasted bagel spread with peanut butter and topped with sliced ripe banana (has to be spotty) is delicious! Those look great.
Funny but I just asked this same question the other day on another post. I’m planning on making bagels very soon and will be putting the dough in the fridge and shaping in the morning. I’ll let you know how it works out!
Hey there Arlo48,
I made bagels this morning and they are delicious; they baked up plump w/nice oven spring. I used high protein bread flour and about 75g red fife whole wheat unbolted. I also used Eric’s sourdough slurry as in the video cause I always have active starter around.
Here’s what I think the trade off is though: when you shape in the morning, you’re way less likely to get the big holes Eric’s have, because however gentle you are, you’re deflating the dough while shaping & you only have a short window after that before they’re ready to boil. Because I had levain added, I felt like I had a little wiggle room and I let the shaped bagels rest covered for an hour before boiling. Even with that hour + the sourdough, my crumb was still fairly fine throughout. They did not deflate at all by the way, and floated immediately at the boil.
Still a great chewy texture and flavor though, & since putting trays in the fridge is just not an option, I’m happy with the final product. SO much better than store bought!
Good luck!!
image|640x480
Thanks for letting me know how it went! This is interesting because as I was thinking through how I was going to do a morning shaping (tomorrow morning), I realized that it would be just like “punching down” the dough whereas if I shaped it the night before, it would be boiled straight from the fridge and not go through a punch down. So then I wondered, how long after shaping would I let it rise? It sounds like you waited about an hour. (I too will be doing sourdough, and will use 65% bread flour, 35% whole grain spelt.)
I actually can manage one baking sheet in my fridge, and that’s how I’ve done it so far. But I want to make a bigger batch which would require 2 sheets, and that’s what got me thinking about the morning shaping.
I guess having a tighter crumb as you did isn’t such a bad trade off. Everyone has their priorites in bagels, and mine are chewiness and flavor and a large center hole. I admit I like seeing an open crumb, but maybe I can get over it! I tend to make them relatively small, 95g, so I will watch the dough and not the clock because I’ve learned from experience 
that overproofing will ruin them.
In the end I wasn’t thrilled with the morning shaping, mainly because rolling ropes with cold dough didn’t work well, and if I had let it get to room temp, it also would’ve been hard to work with given the problems I had handling the bagels when ready to boil. So not sure I’ll repeat this unless I absolutely can’t shape the night before.
Also they weren’t as chewy as I would’ve liked although this could be due to the 35% whole grain. I will keep trying though!
Think that where I’ve gone wrong. I’ve made these twice and both times they deflated during boiling never to recover. I’m in UK and getting high protein flour is a problem. I’ve ordered some Canadian bread flour so hoping to try again…with success!
Here’s a pic of the gluten-free bagels I made, based on the Breadtopia recipe, but subbing the flours. I used Breadtopia’s GF bread flour mix and ivory teff from my local food coop. The flavor was excellent and they held up well in the boiling water. But I still want to work on the texture, as there was a Play Doh like quality to them. Not awful, but I think I can do better. I would like to use less of the bread flour mix, because I think that contributes to the texture, but I am not sure what would happen if I just use more teff, or if I should introduce a third flour. Any suggestions?
Working with the dough felt a little like working with clay! I had to dip the dough in water to keep it from cracking while I formed them into bagel shapes. I think the dough can be way more hydrated than I originally thought, so I will definitely up the initial hydration. And I think it will be better to add the teff into the water first, and then the GF bread flour mix. The mix sort of formed blobs when it hit the water, but the stand mixer took care of that, so in the end it was fine. I will keep experimenting. Luckily I cut the recipe in half and only made six.
Those look amazing. Not just “amazing for gluten free bagels.” I understand what you’re saying about texture, though. Did you toast them like crazy? I imagine that would help with the final texture. Unfortunately I don’t have any suggestions but I look forward to hearing about your experiments.
1 Like
I did toast the one I ate and it helped. I dropped four off for a friend who can’t eat gluten. She will be honest in her feedback tomorrow. I have one left in the freezer that I will eat soon. And then I will tinker some more on another batch 
1 Like
Here is an Everything Bagel Mix recipe posted by a fellow home baker. I’ve been slowly acquiring the ingredients needed to make this myself. Now I’ve got some ratios to work with 
1 Like