Bagel Issues
Hi All,
I have been trying to bake professional quality bagels at home for a few months and I am still not satisfied and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I live in NY so I know what a great bagel tastes like and mine are not anywhere near that. If anyone can take a look at my current process/photos and possibly provide any pointers it would be much appreciated.
Process: This is the rundown on how I'm making them. I mix all the dry ingredients and the wet together in a mixer using a dough hook (tried the sponge and really didn't notice any difference so I cut that step out). After the dough is made, I let it sit for about 20 minutes under a wet rag and then shape it into bagels. I then let it sit for another 10-20 minutes under a damp rag and perform a float test that this time around resulted in bagels that floated within 2 seconds, which makes me think I overproofed them, although they did not end up puffing up into softballs when I baked them. Immediately after the float test I put the tray of bagels into a plastic bag and then into the refrigerator over night (approx. 10-12 hours). The next day I placed the bagels into boiling water for about 1 minute (turning periodically) and then into a 500 degree oven on bagel boards for about 15 min (flipped bagel boards after 5 minutes).
Recipe:
64 oz High Gluten Flour (8 cups)
.7 oz salt (2 teaspoons) (2%)
19oz water (2.5 cups) (55%)
.5 oz malt (1/2 tablespoon) (1.5%)
.175 oz (2 teaspoon) instant dry yeast (.50%)
Results: From the exterior the bagels looked okay but they smelled and tasted more like bland bread than bagels. On the inside, they looked more yellow than white and the crumb was not as tight and chewy as your traditional bagel. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I know I am missing something as the bagels I make consistently come out tasting like boring bland bread.
I also live in NYC and make my own bagels. It's a little hard to compare home made to bagel shop because the recipes the shops use often have a decent amount of sugar. That said, I overnight rise mine in the fridge and it adds to the taste. There's a good recipe for that style in this month's Cook's Illustrated. Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice has a similar one.
I don't get it. If the issue was lack of sugar then wouldn't you just add more sugar?
... my toddler son distracted me by climbing onto the back of the couch and singing: "Batman, da na na..."
I did try to add a bit more sugar but it made proofing go wild.
I should have added that the consistency and crust are hard to match because commercial ovens are completely different from home ovens.
Agreed. Their ovens rotate and I can't even try to imitate that in my very standard home oven. I add sugar by way of malt syrup and from what I read it's either that or regular sugar used by the pros, not both.
They definitely shouldn't float before the retard. Is your dough very warm coming out of the mixer? It should be around 76F - if it's too warm, adjust your water temperature down.
Are you doing a 'pierced-ball' shaping method? If you roll the dough into ropes, and join the ends into rings, you'll get a tighter, chewier bagel. Be aggressive enough to degass the dough completely while shaping.
Interesting. Most of what I've read suggested a float test in cold water before the cold proof and a dough temp of 80F.
I will try this. Do you know why the bagel needs to be "degassed"? I was originally going out of my way not to let the air out of the proofed dough.
...you don't de-gas the proofed dough, but that's several stages beyond what I suspect vtsteve is talking about. He suggests that you de-gas throughly after the bulk fermentation but before proofing. Bulk fermenting and proving are essentially the same process just at different stages of the dough's progress towards the oven. By degassing you are making sure that yeast has a good supply of food before the dough goes into the final rise. It also, as vtsteve says, gives you a much finer crumb. Hope this helps.
Thanks. Just to confirm, after I mix the dough, and let it absorb all the water, then I degass prior to shaping the bagels?
move to the refrigerator without a rest to proof. I think you're over proofing (for bagels) with the 20 minute rest before chilling.
Use a pot for boiling. You want the boiling water deep enough, about 2 l/qt, for the cold bagels to sink and eventually float. If you use malt syrup in the boil, use enough to have the color of strong tea. If you prefer to use lye in the boil, you won't need as strong a solution as pretzels. Use ½oz per quart of water by weight, or 15g per liter. This is a 1.5% solution. If you do use lye, use a stainless steel or ceramic coated pot.
I believe these changes will make a difference to your making bagels instead of common bread.
cheers,
gary
Thank you. This was very helpful. When you say "Use ½oz per quart of water by weight, or 15g per liter", it made me think that all my ratios are off within my ingredients. For example, if I have a recipe with 50% water and 4 cups of flour, would that be 4 cups x 8 oz per cup = 32 oz of flour and 16 oz or 2 cups of water? or... Should I be weighing all ingredients? If I need 2 oz or salt, should I weight out what a teaspoon of salt weighs and then see how many teaspoons I need? I think I'm mixing up fluid oz vs regular oz.
everything.
Here are some weight and volume calculators I use when converting from a volume-based recipe to weight measurements:
http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_volume_cooking.htm
http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking/
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipe/master-weight-chart.html
There are many others, including various apps for smartphones. You will notice that no one tool lists all ingredients. You may also notice that there is some disagreement between tools as to how much a volume of an ingredient, say a cup of bread flour, weighs. That's because measuring techniques and the physical properties of some of the ingredients cause some uncertainty.
I'll give you an example: when I use the fluff/spoon/sweep method of measuring a cup of AP or bread flour, weights are pretty consistently in the 125g-130g per cup range. On the other hand, Beth Hensperger's Bread Bible quantities are based on the dip/sweep method of filling a cup and she lists the weight of a cup of flour as being between 140g and 150g.
In your question, you mention water at 50% but I have the impression that you are comparing volumes of water and flour, rather than weights. You need to focus on weights when referring to hydration. So, 4 cups of flour (depending on how you measure it) might be 500g or it might be 600g. Or something in between. Water, at 50%, would be either 250g or 300g. I apologize for not being more precise but I don't know how you fill a cup with flour.
Yes! Work with weights for all ingredients except those that are so light that your scale doesn't register the addition. Notice that working with grams gets you away from the pesky fluid ounces and dry ounces convention. It also lets you work with whole numbers instead of fractions. Weighing ingredients will make your life so much easier--and I haven't even mentioned that you won't need to wash as many dishes.
It took me a while to get used to using weights instead of cups and spoons but now I find myself muttering under my breath at the [people] who wrote a recipe with volume measurements. Best wishes as you make the conversion.
Paul
Belated thanks for this. I've been incorporating this advice and others into my baking.
absolutely weigh your ingredients. A sloppy exception may be made if you've established the ingredient weights per volume, as Paul, above, described.
Assume your cup of flour weighs 150g (5.3oz avoir. --- see, you're in trouble already compared to gms measures), or 600g total. Water @ ~227g per 8 fl oz, and at 50% hydration, you only need 300g, so only ~10.5 fl oz., not 16.
Instant dry yeast is ~3.5g per tsp, so 0.5% is 3g; 1 scant* tsp should work. Table salt runs 6g per tsp, so 2% is 12g or 2 tsp. You cannot use kosher or sea salt by volume. Each brand varies in density, sometimes brands vary within themselves. Measure by weight only.
cheers,
gary
*scant, a term from woodworking. A scant cut puts the kerf edge inside the line, and a full cut has the kerf edge to the outside of the cutting line.
the bagels should barely float after their time in the fridge.
Degassing the dough after the bulk rise (in Bread, Hamelman calls for 1 hour) refines the crumb - the large bubbles are split into many small ones. Strong shaping tightens the gluten, so they won't relax into bread in the fridge. I shape the dough like baguetttes, folding and tightening before I elongate them into ropes and form the rings.
SInce you give weight and volume measurements... are you actually weighing the ingredients? If not, that's a great place to start. A small deviation in your flour weight could result in higher-than-intended hydration, and fermentation will go faster.
just rescale the formula in grams - 10g = 1%.
Flour = 1000g (100%)
Water = 550g (55%)
Salt = 20g (2%)
Malt = 15g (1.5%)
IDY = 5g (0.5%)
Your original batch was based on 2# of flour, now it's 2.2# (1kg) - and the math is much cleaner.
but some things are just more convenient to measure by volume. If you repeat a recipe often water can be easily measured by volume, same for salt as both ingredients don't compact the way flour does.
Gerhard
Try this: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/17391/hamelman-bread-challenge-quintessential-bagel
http://kevinscooking.com/bagels.htm
Hi All, thanks again for the advice. I've included all the above into my bagel baking over the past 2 weeks and have seen some improvements in flavor, although still not where I want to be.
Something very strange started happening after I began incorporating sugar and oil into the recipe. The bagels come out looking decent, however after cooling for a few minutes they get very wrinkled. Any idea what could cause this? Also, I've been struggling to get the exterior shell to be chewier. It seems to change color and get a bit tougher but it's much softer than what I'm used to.
Oil will soften the crust and the crumb. I've never seen it included in a bagel formula. I've not seen all possible formulas, but I'd bet oil is not common in NY style water bagels.
By sugar, do you mean common granulated sugar? The sugar in bagels is diastatic malt for its enzymes, α-amalyse and β-amalyse, which slice and dice the starch molecules. It is used because there is only a short rest before shaping and chilling, not time for a real bulk ferment to improve flavor. The table sugar will help the flavor in lieu of malt, and is not likely to cause problems if used sparingly (< 5%)
Thanks. I cut out the oil but kept the sugar. This time I went with about 3% confectioner and 4% honey, putting my over the 5% you mentioned above. I am not certain but I think the sugar is softening the crumb and shell of the bagel resulting in wrinkling. When I was using malt only I had no wrinkling problems. I'm thinking about switching back to pure malt however I need to understand diastic vs non-diastatic and powder vs syrup as i'm not sure which one would help achieve the plump golden chewy bagel i'm looking for. Also, I noticed that my bagels are not rising as much as I would like. I watched at a local old school NY bagel shop by me and they seem to leave the bagels out to proof for a while before chilling. Their bagels have a great flavor and plump up more to my liking. Any idea if proofing before the cold ferment is okay? Conversely, should I cold ferment right away and then proof before boiling or should the cold bagels go right into the boil?