Bagels Egged or Oven?

Botch

LetsEat said:
The culinary dream I have been chasing is the dark golden exterior color, shattering crunch of the crust, open textured crumb, and deeply flavored bread. 

I just finished reading an article on pretzel-making in Cooks Illustrated.  To get the full-mahogany color on a German pretzel they are dipped in a lye (!) solution for 15 seconds before baking; had half a page of safety precautions included and sounded kind've fussy.  They also included an alternative, baking soda in the dipping water (1/2 cup soda for 8 cups water).  The soda pretzel wasn't near as dark as the lye version, but I bet you could apply the idea to bagels.  
 
Thanks for the recipe.  Do you have a good way of storing/reviving them the next day?  I usually buy one at Einstein's, as they're best cooked that day, but would like to try these.  EDIT: never mind, I saw in the recipe to freeze and reheat.  

LetsEat

Botch said:

LetsEat said:
The culinary dream I have been chasing is the dark golden exterior color, shattering crunch of the crust, open textured crumb, and deeply flavored bread. 

I just finished reading an article on pretzel-making in Cooks Illustrated.  To get the full-mahogany color on a German pretzel they are dipped in a lye (!) solution for 15 seconds before baking; had half a page of safety precautions included and sounded kind've fussy.  They also included an alternative, baking soda in the dipping water (1/2 cup soda for 8 cups water).  The soda pretzel wasn't near as dark as the lye version, but I bet you could apply the idea to bagels.  
 
Thanks for the recipe.  Do you have a good way of storing/reviving them the next day?  I usually buy one at Einstein's, as they're best cooked that day, but would like to try these.  

@Botch I’ve always utilized food grade lye in making pretzels. I grew up watching my German grandmother making them so I never gave it a second thought. Now I have pretzel cravings!

My recipe yields a dozen bagels. They freeze perfectly. Once baked, cool and place in a freezer grade ziploc bag and pop into your freezer. Defrost, toast/warm as needed. 

Give the recipe a go and let me know if you have questions. Enjoy!

ColbyLang

Lye bath critical in pretzel and most bagel formulations. Changes crust texture as well as gives color. There are no bagel makers/bakeries in Louisiana 

caliking

Those look darn good.

I've  done long ferments with sourdough before, but not with instant yeast. Thanks for the clarification re: timeline. 

caliking

I might try adding baking soda to the bath. Thanks for the tip @Botch.

I started to dip my toes in the pretzel rabbit hole some years ago, then came to a hard stop when I read about the lye bath. Caliprince was a toddler back then. 

PSA - if you have little kids, please don't store lye in the house. Anywhere. I've seen horrible things happen to kids who accidentally ingested lye. 

LetsEat

caliking said:

Those look darn good.

I've  done long ferments with sourdough before, but not with instant yeast. Thanks for the clarification re: timeline. 

The added 24 hours wasn’t intentional but the result of being distracted with the dog’s surgery. When I remembered the bagels were still in the refrigerator, I figured had nothing to loose.  I’m still maintaining my three day bake. 

ColbyLang

24 hour cold proof shouldn’t do anything but make them better! More fermentation. 

Stormbringer

I was looking for a bagel recipe and found this thread, the results look outstandingly tasty. @LetsEat or @Botch do you have the recipe for this please that you could post in this thread? The link in the OP gives an authorisation error for me. 

zaphod

I've done pretzels in the oven, and want to do them again, but in the egg and also want to do bagels.

FWIW, i use baking soda in the water when doing pretzels and the recipe came from Irma (Joy of Cooking).

Botch

@Stormbringer, I think this is it (I've got seven different bagel recipes in my files):
 

Day One

Poolish

166g KA Unbleached AP Flour

1/4t Saf-Instant Yeast

198g Water

Place ingredients in a 6qt Cambro and mix with a Danish dough whisk until a smooth consistency. Cover and let rest at room temperature for 8 hours. 

Dough

340g Water

660g KA Unbleached AP Flour

17g Table Salt (non iodized)

3/4t Saf-Instant Yeast

Add water to the Poolish and mix with a Danish dough whisk until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well until the dough forms a shaggy consistency. Cover and rest for two hours at room temperature. After the first hour, lift and fold the dough onto itself four times. Repeat three more times during the second hour (four times total).  Cover and place in the refrigerator overnight. 

Day Two

Shaping

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and leave at room temperature for approximately 15 minutes. Divide the dough into 12 pieces approximately 115g each. Shape into balls with circular hand cupping motion. Cover and let rest approximately 5 minutes. Shape into 3” bagels and place on generously floured parchment paper lined sheet pan. Cover with lightly sprayed plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 

Day Three

Everything Bagel Seasoning

1/4C Poppy Seed

1/4C Sesame Seed

3T Dried Onion Flakes

3T Garlic Flakes

2T Coarse Sea Salt

Oven 475’

Preheat oven to 475’ with a baking stone on the middle rack. Oven preheat times will vary. I bake in a Gaggenau EB388 that allows for maximum baking flexibility with a dedicated, heated baking stone, separate top-bottom heating sources as well as convection heating. That being said, I still preheat for 30-45 minutes. 

Remove bagels from refrigerator. 

Water Bath

3T Non-Diastataic Malt Powder

2t Kosher Salt (adjust to personal preference)

Heat 4-5” of water in a shallow but wide pot. I use a 5qt LeCreuset Baiser.  Cover and bring to a medium boil. Uncover, add the Non-Diastatiac malt powder and salt. Work in batches. I prep 6 bagels per batch for baking.  Gently reshape bagel hole if necessary being careful not to deflate.  Place bagels one at a time in the gently boiling water. Boil bagels for 30 seconds. Flip. Boil bagels for 90 seconds on the second side.  Remove from water with a spider and blot with a kitchen towel. Dip/sprinkle with seasoning mix if desired. Place on parchment paper. 

Baking

Transfer parchment paper with bagels to oven preheated baking stone. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove parchment paper and bake for an additional 3 minutes. Bagels should be firm, golden brown and crusty. Remove bagels to a cooling rack. Store at room temp for 24 hours. The bagels freeze and reheat well. 

*baking times/temps will vary depending upon oven

*I prep and bake 6 bagels at a time refrigerating the remaining bagels to prevent over-rising (if necessary). 

Stormbringer

Thanks! It probably is the one, the make of the oven is the clue. 

Botch

I looked up an older post of this project on another forum, and did some experiments with coloring the bagels, might be useful here:
 

I've seen all different ingredients in the boiling water to provide a brown crust (malt powder, malt syrup, honey, baking soda, lye) so I experimented a bit: first three bagels had only salt in the water (the unseeded ones below), then non-diastolic (sp?) malt powder for the next six (per the BGE recipe), then finally added a Tblspn of baking soda to the water for the last three. You can easily pick those out below, but the soda made the water foam up badly and almost overflowed (don't know if starting with the soda in cold water would help). Topping was "Everything Bagel" from King Arthur Flour. 

LetsEat

Sorry for the delay in responding @Stormbringer. Looks like @Botch has you covered.  That is still my all time favorite recipe!You have reminded me that I’m overdue in making a batch!

Stormbringer

Thanks!

LetsEat

Looking forward to your bake @Stormbringer!