Peter Reinhart’s Bagels #1

These had a great slightly crunchy and chewy crust but the interior was too light, probably because I used all purpose flour rather than bread or high-gluten flour. I'd try them again with a higher protein flour.  I substituted brown sugar for the traditional diastatic malt, and added baked baking soda to make the water an alkaline -- I believe this contributed to the excellent crust.

Peter Reinhart's recipe in Bread Baker's Apprentice uses a mix of Imperial volumes and weights but I found very little correlation, e.g., he says 4 Cups flour was 18 ounces, but I got everywhere from 18-20 ounces depending on how I fluffed and scooped the flour. He also doesn't use metric, which is a shame since it's so much more convenient. I'm adding the metric-ized values I used, but should recalculate based on his bakers percentages which are more scalable anyway.

Sponge

1   tsp    0.11  ounce    4 g   0.31%  Instant Yeast
4   cup   18     ounce  510 g   51.4%  Flour, high gluten(I used AP)
2.5 cup   20     ounce  600 ml  57.1%  Water, at room temperature

Dough

0.5  tsp   0.055 ounce    2 g   0.16%  Instant Yeast
3.75 cup  17     ounce  500 g  48.6 %  Flour, high gluten(I used AP)
2.75 tsp   0.7   ounce   20 g   2   %  Salt
1    Tbs   0.5   ounce   15 g   1.8 %  Brown Sugar

Boiling Water (my additions)

2    Tbs                 30 g          Brown Sugar
1    Tbs                 15 g          Baked Baking Soda

Make sponge by whisking yeast into flour in stand mixer bowl then adding water and whisking until smooth like pancake batter. Cover until bubbly and nearly doubled, about 2 hours. 

To make dough, add in second batch of yeast, flour, salt, and sugar. Mix in stand mixer with dough hook until it forms a ball. Knead in machine 6-10 minutes -- it should be stiff pliable but not tacky. This is a dense dough and will give your mixer a workout.

Divide dough into 16 even pieces (about 100 g each), shape into balls, cover with a damp towel and let rise 20 minutes.

Line 2 sheet pans with parchment and mist with cooking oil spray.

Shape bagels by poking a finger through the center of each ball and enlarging the hole until it's about 6 cm / 2.5 in diameter.  Lay each on the parchment, mist with spray oil, and cover with film for about 20 minutes. 

Test the rise by placing one bagel in a bowl of water: it should float within 10 seconds. Remove the bagel, pat dry and return to parchment and cover. If the bagel doesn't float, rise 10 minutes more and try again.

Retard in refrigerator, covered, for 24-48 hours to develop flavor.

Preheat oven to 250C/475F convection. Get another cookie sheet, add parchment and mist with oil; dust with corn meal.

Bring wide pot of water to boil with brown sugar and baked baking soda.  Place bagels top (presentation side) down into the water bath and boil gently for 60 seconds; flip gently and boil for another 60 seconds. Place on corn mealed sheet, and boil the rest of the rounds the same way. Mine puffed up so I was not able to fit 8 bagels on a sheet, so I used the extra sheet pan.  Top with coarse salt, seeds etc if desired right after you take the bagels out of the bath.

Bake for 5 minutes, drop heat to 220C/400F convection and bake 5 more minutes. Let rest at least 15 minutes before slicing or eating. 

I cooked one tray of 8 bagels after a 24 hour retard, then the second tray the next day after a 48 hour retard.