My First Shot at Bagels
This is my first post on Fresh Loaf, but I have been reading posts for months now. This is my first try at Bagels and I consider it about 50% success. They look better than they taste. Not to say they taste bad, just not "bagelly".They actually taste a whole lot like my soft pretzels...sorta. They are 100% bread flour which I was not too happy to do, but I usually follow recipes very closely the first time around and then modify. I like whole wheat bagels the best so that is coming next.
I use a Bread Machine on Dough mode sometimes as I have no mixer. This was one of those times. Thought I broke the machine at one point since the dough is incredibly dry. I took it out and hand kneeded for another 10 minutes. I let it rise then shaped. Retarded in the fridge overnight and just took them out of the oven. I am using Peter Reinhart's "Crust and Crumb" Yeasted Bagels recipe with his Poolish and KA Bread flour. It was a 3 day process since I had to make the Poolish. They were 102g at shaping and currently 94g baked w/toppings. Not big, but not small. Here are the pictures.
Poaching 4 at a time...
First batch out of the oven (yes only 4 fit at a time...the oven is from 1954... = very tiny)
3 Poppy seed, 2 Golden Flax, and 3 Sesame seed
Poser shot...
And finally...the crumb.
Everything looks pretty good from this perspective. The texture, principally a product of the length of time the dough is left to boil in the water bath, can be a bit tricky to master. I don't see any tiny bubbles in your water bath images so I wonder if the temperature of the water was where it needed to be.
I prefer chewy bagels that are somewhat dense so I boil them about 2 minutes per side. I've found that if they come out of the water bath as soon as they float on the first side then, after turning, they get something slightly less than a minute on the next side, they seem to be lighter in texture. Hydration of the dough is, of course, a factor also and the adjustments in the formula will depend on a lot more than simply the weighted quantities of the ingredients.
Stick with it. Looks to me like you've got a very good start here.
So I decided I couldn't just throw away my poolish last night so I made the same recipe, but replaced 1.5 cups with dark rye, rapid boiled (poached) them 4 minutes each side and threw in about 5 or 6 ice cubes on a pan at the bottom of the oven. I swear they might be some of the best bagels I have ever eaten. I have a whole wheat batch retarding right now and they will hit the oven in about 2 hours.
Usually I am all for the only change one thing at a time mindset, but I am glad I changed a few things and got such a good batch.
Always nice to hear the sounds of success ringing across the forum.
Congrats .....