Sourdough bagel prep and bake

Baking Techniques
1

Hello Melissa,

I did make the bagels following the Breadtopia recipe. Afew observations and questions :
I don’t think my dough rose enough ( I let it rise 8 hours ) and when I went to make the long tube, before dividing into the bagels, I found the dough very hard to roll out, thickish.
I had used 20:90:90 and put the levain in the frig overnite ( and had done a fresh feed before ); not quite sure it expanded enough but had to do the frig overnight
I used 550 grams of water and the dough seemed a bit dry.
I used one kind of whole wheat flour ( what I had on hand ) but not sure that mattered. I did takea photo but not sure how to attach a phototo this post but they look good and am sure thatb they will ne okay to eat but any suggestions on techniques would be welcome.
Thanks again.

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When you roll out the bagels, the dough should have a lot of air, to the point that it is kind of tedious to keep finding large pockets that you have to squish and pop – also entertaining from the sounds standpoint :smirk:

I’m guessing the levain needed more ripening, and in the absence of that, the dough needed a longer bulk ferment.

Bagel dough is pretty dry – a little dryer than pizza dough but not as dry as pasta dough. Your whole wheat flour may have been a little more thirsty than what I used. It’s hard to say.

3

Hi Melissa,

Thanks for the quick feedback. Next time I will try to make my levain more fresh and active and bulk ferment longer ( longer than 8 hours seems very long) and in mixing flour, etc. will add a bit more water
Thanks again for all your help