April 7, 2015 - 8:39pm
Mixing bagels by hand
In the spirit of artisan baking I want to mix by hand, but after mixing a 100% whole wheat recipe from Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads I'm not sure if I can make enough bagels that way. The book says to knead about 5 minutes but I could barely pass the window-pane test after 10 minutes of intense kneading. I will definitely build muscle this way, but I can't imagine multiplying this recipe by 10 to satisfy demand of just my close friends. Should I invest in a mixer, or can I scale this method up to around 6 dozen bagels?
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I watched a youtube video on making bagels at home. It was recommended to knead the low hydration dough by hand rather than using a home mixer because the stiff dough might burn out the motor on the mixer. The person in the video also said that 5 to 6 minutes of hand kneading is all you need. They used the poke test to test gluten formation rather than the window pane method. Just poke the dough, and if it bounces back, gluten is developed.
I don't know how large your oven is, but I would make enough to bake in the oven. You don't want to end up with lots of overproofed dough while waiting for the oven. So it's probably better to make batch by batch. It's easier to knead since you don't have to knead a huge mound of dough. It's best to divide the dough into small portions for easier handling and kneading.
I make at one time is limited by how much room I have in the fridge for the bagels to retard after shaping for 18 hours - not how much I can knead at one time. I never ever do a windowpane test on bagels or any other dough for that matter since I don't make enriched dough that much. Most of my bread is made with slap and folds, stretch and folds and time. Bagels are the exception were old time kneading is used and like lazy baker says , the poke test works better anyway,
Happy Bagel making. There are more expensive mixers that can handle larger amounts of bagel dough but a KA will just burn up.
I always make bagels by hand and I do fairly large batches for a home baker. Most often, I make 4 to 6 dozen total at a time, working with 2 or 3 different varieties (plain, egg, onion, cinnamon raisin, etc) So my dough batches are not huge but substantial….5 to 10 lbs of dough per flavor. I find that 3.5 oz of dough makes a perfect size bagel. If you can not retard all the bagels in your refrigerator, consider using a large cooler with frozen gel packs to keep the bagels chilled overnight. Instead of sheet pans, place the shaped bagels into baking pans with 2.5 to 3 inch high sides so you can stack them without squashing the bagels. I use my pizza dough boxes which are made to stack. I have lined a deck box (the type that holds outside furniture pads and such) with pieces of rigid insulating foam to accommodate the large dough boxes. (I am in Minnesota, so keeping things cold outside is not often a problem. Keeping them from freezing can be.) Just take out the trays as you work…letting some stay cold until you are ready for them. I get up early, "boil" and bake the bagels in a couple of hours and have them fresh and ready when the breakfast guests arrive.
The recipe I'm using doesn't require placing the shaped bagels in the fridge--just the biga goes in overnight. That's one reason I like this recipe. I could knead more batches and put them in the fridge before shaping because they have 45-60 minutes to rise after mixing the biga and soaker. My goal is to maximise the number of bagels I can produce by hand with the equipment I have. Can two sheets of bagels be baked at the same time? Usually the top rack is overdone and the lower rack underdone, so I guess I can switch them halfway through.
Every oven has its own quirks, but by rotating pans on the three racks plus turning them front to back sometimes, I can keep three half sheets baking evenly. I use my pizza stone on the lowest rack to protect the metal 1/2 sheet pan from the intense heat of the lower electrical element. Having that much in the oven at once takes some watching, so there is lots going on when turning out so many bagels in a couple of hours. The first order of business at 5 AM is to brew a nice strong pot of coffee for the baker.
Having the bagels shaped before retarding overnight is to my advantage. If I had to shape the bagels in the morning, it would be more difficult to finish baking by 8 AM breakfast unless I started at 3. I'll leave that time schedule to the professionals. : )
Sounds like you have a bigger oven and fridge than me. At most I could fit two trays of 6 bagels in both. One thing I like about Reinhart's whole wheat recipes is they can stay in the fridge in small containers for up to 3 days. So it's more flexible with both time and fridge space.
My oven is a standard size….about 24" wide oven in a 30" wide stove. Your oven must be smaller…or your bagels much larger. : ) Certainly, part of the fun and challenge of baking is finding ways to make a recipe work in any kitchen on your schedule…and produce beautiful breads. I also bake in my outdoor oven and in a early 1900's wood burning stove. Both give me a great appreciation for the skills of long-ago bakers.
I love making bagels for my family! I loosely follow Reinhart's recipe. I would love to see the recipe each of you use and love. Do any of you make a pumpernickel bagel? What about cinnamon raisin? I tried CR once but they were dry and not a hit.
I boil about 45 seconds per side in a baking soda bath with some liquid barley malt added. What's your boiling process?
Please share your love!
I also had some problems with cinnamon raisin bagels. Cinnamon has a negative impact on yeast so I used SAF Gold which is designed for sweet breads and other difficult yeast conditions. Increasing the amount of yeast may help as well. The cinnamon bagels then rose nicely and had good texture. I have made rye bagels….20% rye flour and caraway seeds. They tasted good but were more dense than the plain bagels. You can try onion bagels using either dried onion or fresh onion (caramelized) in the plain bagel recipe (adjust the water to compensate for the moisture of the fresh onion or dryness of the dehydrated onion). And asiago cheese bagels are wonderful!!