October 28, 2012 - 6:45pm
Hamelman's and "Flipping"
I tried Hamelman's bagel recipe this weekend...and will never let go of it! But I do have a few questions:
1. High-gluten flour *not* bread flour...where do you buy this?
2. I felt the bagels lacked the flavor that my other recipes have. Should I add more salt?
3. I was very surprised that his recipe did not include malt powder IN the dough. Might adding it improve the flavor? Will that affect other ratios?
4. I noticed there was no egg wash and I felt they were much paler than other recipes. How can I improve this? Normal for this recipe?
I also tried "flipping" the bagles this go-round, although I don't have a bagel board. I'll admit, the shape was very nice. But it seems to be a small benefit. Anyone disagree? Any techniques you'd recommend?
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Just spent the weekend with Jeff. I learned alot about the whole baking process. I perfer to use diastatic malt powder in my bagels and I like them malty. So, I use a bit more than called for. I have found that a pale brown color to the bagel is better. Since most people toast them getting them to brown results in burning when toasted. Also, crank the oven temperature up. If the outside is pale and the inside is done then your temp is to low.
MANNA,
I think I'm going to try adding malt TO the dough, as well as boil with it.
As for the temperature...they were just right inside but yes, pale outside. Unfortunately, they were starting to burn on the bottom. How can I reach a happy medium? Or at least, get a browner crust without charring the bottom...
do you use egg wash?
If they were burned on the bottom but the tops were not browned yet you need to move your oven rack up in the oven. The bottoms got to much heat and the tops to little. Try that then see if you get better browning on the outside all around. Then check the inside crumb. Once you have that you can asses if your temperature and oven position are correct.
Side note. you want around 14% protien in the high glutin flour, bread flour will work fine.
Mr. Hamelman's bagel recipe on page 260 of Bread does call for diastatic malt powder as an ingredient. Two teaspoons, or .2 ounces for the home recipe. It also calls for adding barley malt syrup to the boiling water; enough to make the water look like dark tea. The barley malt syrup will give your bagels a beautiful brown shine, once they are baked.
As to sourcing high gluten flour, I was ordering it from KAF but because I make the Hamelman bagels a few times each month, I found a local restaurant that gets it for me in 50# bags at a very nominal price. I've used bread flour and for me personally (and my friends and family) that's a bread doughnut, not a bagel.
The only deviation I make from the recipe in Bread is that I don't flip the bagels. I tried it once, but it's a pain in the neck doing it in my home oven. The bagels are wonderful without being flipped.
Am wondering where you found your recipe if it does not require DMP. Do you also retard them overnight, as called for in the book?
I found a local wholesale food store that sells #50 pound bags to the public. Perhaps a search under "baking supplies" or "flour" will reveal local sources . If not I found that adding vital wheat gluten to KABF to bring the gluten percentage up works. I use the mixed mass percentage calculator to figure out how much is needed found here. http://tools.foodsim.com/
Hamelman's formula is my "go to" for bagles, but with a few changes in technique. First, I don't use malt syrup. Instead I bought food grade lye from an internet source and add one teaspoon per quart to cold water (lye reacts strongly with water, and if the temperature is high it can be rather startling) in a stainless pan. Lye being reactive does not play well with many materials so stainless it is. I bring the water to a simmer and the bagels go in. I flip them after 20 seconds or so and after about 20 seconds more remove them to the ice water per Hamelman's direction. I have a box of examination gloves and I use them when handling bagels. Less likely to stick to the bagels than skin.
I also spray Pam onto sheets of parchment and place the bagels onto it after shaping. No sticking at all. I also use a big flat cookie sheet that I put in the oven with the baking stones on a seperate rack that I slide the bagels on parchment onto. I bake until the tops are dry, flip them over on the same paper then use the cookie sheet as a peel and slide them onto the hot stone, paper and all. There doesn't seem to be a substantial difference in quality when using parchment vs direct contact with the stone.
Regarding lye, I grew up in an area that used this technique and personally prefer the results over malt syrup. Some are afraid of it, but using reasonable precautions such as examination gloves and having something to protect the eyes it's no worse than working with a hot oven or cooktop. I do not let the solution get above a fair simmer and add the lye to cold water not hot. Also, Hamelman uses lye for his pretzels, also found in the Bread book, but at a concentration three times what I use for bagels. The results? Delicious!
for bagels and if you want a round shape rather than on side being flat and possibly burned then flipping is required. After a 12 hour retard there is a round side to the bagel before it is boiled. Take not of it and after boiling make sure that the round side goes into the seeds and the bagels starts to bake seed side (round side down). I rest the round side on a kitchen towel for a second to get rid of excess water before going into the seeds. The skin is so gelatinized from boiling the seeds will stick to it without egg wash.
I bake my bagels for 16 minutes total on parchment on a stone so at the the 6-8 minute mark the bagels get flipped seed side up. Works every time. This is the Stan Ginsberg method and he knows his NY bagels,
I dont flip my bagels and this is a pic of my result.
Ugh...I have major bagel envy now...!
Manna, those look perfect! And you use Hamelman's recipe verbatim?
I'm thinking that his recipe, which I found online and not in "Bread" may be wrong. The recipe that I found said to ONLY use malt powder in that boiling water...not in the bagel.
I really appreciate the oven advice. Yep, burnt bottoms and white tops...I need to move those racks!
I didn't get the shape that you did. Mine had a very dramatic DOME, with the holes nearly gone. Is this a recipe issue...or an oven/baking temp issue?
If the dough has a dramatic dome and the hole disappeared then the dough was not relaxed enough before you shaped. You also need to let them relax some after forming them into the bagel shape. So, make the dough and let it bulk ferment in a cold place, like the fridge(make sure to cover it). The next day remove it and shape the bagels. Then let them rest for 30 min to relax the glutin before boiling. Check if they pass the float test after 30 min. If they do then boil in water that has water and malt syrup, or honey, or brown sugar, or something high in sugar added. I do about 15 seconds per side. Then remove and bake.
Ah! OK...I shaped the bagels...THEN fermented in the fridge overnight...then, right into the boiling water they went.
So, you suggest leaving the dough as is...the **next day** shaping, resting, then boiling?
In the "Hamelman's" recipe I found, it said to keep the dough in the fridge until the very last moment. Then boil. Is this compromised by taking them out to rest for 30 min?
Malt SYRUP sounds like the way to go for the water. I've been mixing in malt powder and it never gets dark, "like tea." I suppose that's a poor substitute?
I can't find confirmation yet (can you help?) that there is absolutely no malk INSIDE the dough. Is this true? It really threw me when I read the recipe.
Thank you!!
My process for bagels goes like this. Mix dough and immediately divide into 100g pieces. Shape into balls and place onto sheetpan that has been sprayed with oil. Spray tops with oil and cover with plastis wrap. Place into fridge and let sit overnight (6-8 hours). Remove from fridge and shape into bagels. Place them on sheet pans that have been sprayed with oil and dusted with semolina or cornmeal. While they rest bring my water to a boil and add a big spoonful of barley malt syrup. Check to see if a bagel floats in cold water. If it does then start boiling the bagels. Once a sheetpan is full of bagels into the oven it goes. At this point if you run out of oven room take the formed bagels and place in a fridge intill you have the oven space. When you remove them boil immeadiatly, youll be fine, and right into the oven.
My recipe for bagels:
723g flour
420 g water
36g diastatic malt powder (you can use the syrup just reduce the water to 550g)
14g salt, kosher
7g yeast, instant
This will make a dozen 90g bagels. you have a +/- 5g tolerance when scaling. I usually scale between 85g and 90g as my target and havent ended up with my last bagel being kind of wimpy.
Got it. Thanks for the great advice. I'll try this approach this weekend.
Do you only put one sheet in at a time so you're not opening up the oven to rotate the sheets?
My oven holds two half-sheet pans and each pan holds a dozen bagels. So, I have two pans in at a time. I watch them and rotate as needed for even browning. While one oven load bakes Im boiling and prepping the next oven load to keep the oven full and productive.
of those bagels look like? Looks like the hole has disappeared completely and they puffed up like Einstein's cake bagels only without seeds. Are you sure these are real NY bagels ? :-) My wife loves Einstein's bagels and so many others do too but - they aren't bagels to one who knows and loves NY style bagels. That ought to set off a firestorm but it shouldn't. Montreal makes great bagels but they aren't NY Bagels. I say to each his own and all should make the bagels they like rather than what anyone else likes. Bagels should be libertarian and free from being contstrained by anyone. These are what some would call real bagels - but they aren't - they are SD and YW bagels :-)
Here's the process and results when following Mr. Hamelman's recipe precisely:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17391/hamelman-bread-challenge-quintessential-bagel
Includes a link to shaping by Master Baker Ciril Hitz.
Hope it helps...
LindyD, great link!! Thank you!
Can I ask you about your mixer? You mention in this link that your mixer was taking a beating. I have a great KitchAid which typically stands up well to any kind of heavy-duty dough....but 7.5 cups of high-gluten flour...and I could smell its distress.
Can this recipe be split in half to make two smaller doughs...then combine? Or will they inevitably be slightly different and not meld well?
Thanks!
As noted, when I was using my Kitchen Aid Artisan to mix the two pounds of high-gluten flour, I set an ice pack on the motor head to keep down the heat. It helped. That elminated that smell of distress you mentioned (and I smelled the same thing with mine!).
The Bosch compact is used constantly now. Sturdy little thing; barely gets warm after mixing two pounds of HG flour.
As to splitting the recipe in half, that's an excellent idea so long as you are scaling your ingredients. Not sure if you would have to combine each batch. The bulk ferment is an hour; the total mixing time for each batch is about nine minutes with a home stand mixer. If you practice mise en place, you'd mix the first batch, then move it to a bowl, immediately mix the second batch and set it in the same bowl, then bulk ferment for an hour. Takes a bit more mixing time for you, but will be easier on your mixer.
Good thinking!
Could only find the syrup at Whole Foods...expensive. Now I'm reading that any kind of malt SYRUP is non-diastatic? Is this true? I use diastatic powder in the dough...but if this syrup is JUST for color, might using brown sugar be an equally effective and far less expensive alternative?
Any experiences?
Also...I want to half this recipe (quickly) then bulk for the first rise. Can I just half the recipe or do I need to make some adjustments to the yeast as I alter the amount of flour in each half?
Thanks everyone!
Diastatic malt has living enzymes, non-DSM's are killed during processing. The enzymes eat protin and create sugars, replacing what the yeast consume. Non is more like malt sugar. You could use other products to get some sugar in there but it wont have the malt flavor that makes a NY bagel. Wih the boiling water you can use brown sugar if you want. Add enough to color the water to a strong tea look. Try a 1/2 cup to start and see what it looks like. Are you looking to half the recipe I posted?
Since I made the investment...I'll give this malt syrup a try...
MANNA, just tried to convert your recipe (grams to cups/tsps/ounces) and I'm coming up all wrong. I'm not familiar with how to do this...can you advise?
Converting grams to cups is going to be hard. I weigh everything in grams since it is more precise and exact. Cups is a volume measurement and subject to alot of variables. A packed cup of flour weighs more than a sifted cup of flour. But, a packed 100g is the same as 100g of sifted flour. Pick up a scale to weigh your stuff. You will be happy you did. I got one from harbor freight for $15.00 on sale and checked it for accuracy and it was never more than 2 grams off all the way up to 5000 grams.
I ran the math and this is the best I can give you for volume measures.
3 Cup flour
1 3/4 Cup water
2 1/2 tbsp malt
1 tbsp salt (kosher), use a scant tbsp of finer salt (tablesalt)
1 1/2 tsp yeast