Bagel planks
Barry Harmon
mentioned bagel planks, 1 X 4 boards covered on one side with upholstry
webbing.
So I made 4 of the things.
You boil the bagels, then place them on the webbing side of the bagel
planks and place the planks in the oven for 4 minutes.
Then flip the bagels onto the baking surface to finish baking.
I have had a lot of problems over the years with the shape (or lack
thereof) of my bagels, but the ones I baked using her techniques were
almost perfect.
Barry
Boron Elgar
wrote:
What sort of shaping problems do you have? I certainly have trouble in
the initial roll n' hole creation, especially as I make my bagels
smaller than most, but once the boiling begins, I do the following,
although I admit, it is a 2 person operation..one boils, the other
dip..
-Remove them from water with a slotted spoon and onto a wire rack
- Dip them in seeds, salt or desired coating
-Place them on parchment
-Slide onto the stone with a peel
Where does your shaping difficulty arise?
Boron
Barry Harmon
news:6r4kh69nhhnmh494f...@4ax.com:
I was torn between making them from a rope and joining them and taking a
ball and punching a hole in it.
I followed Maggie gleezeer's directions about using the rope-and-join
method and have had no problems ever since.
Using the hole-punch method, I ws getting bagels with all sorts of lines
and other strange indentations in them. They tasted good, but they
looked like something Rumplestiltsken might have made.
Barry
Godzilla
I have used both methods with success. However, once mastered the rope
and join technique seems to create the most visually appealing product.
Godzilla
Boron Elgar
wrote:
I use the rope technique, too, but it is still tricky to keep the hole
open with a tiny bagel.
I have read about the plank recently, too, but did not see any direct
benefit of it. If there is any misshaping done, it is at the rope or
rise stages. Once they go into the water, they are pretty well set for
the oven.
Boron
Motzarella
"Barry Harmon" wrote in message
news:Xns9E5C905D85BB2jo...@209.197.15.254...
Barry
Oh goodie!! Which method for shaping bagels!! Here it comes, Dick. I prefer
taking a small ball, placing my index finger in it, and expanding to a
perfectly shaped bagel. No distortions. And Dick Margulis notwithstanding,
no heresy.
Seriously though, I have never heard of said bagel plank. Does one walk the
bagel off the plank into the water, too?
Alan
Barry Harmon
news:ife8b8$qu7$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
You bake them for 4 minutes, then ask them (force them?!) to do a half
flip on to the baking surface. I can give you the full Maggie Glezer
write up on the thing if you want it. It's rezlly pretty interesting.
Barry
Christine BA
When I tried to look for bagel planks, I came across this site with
videos on how to shape bagels.
http://mellowbakers.com/index.php?topic=128.0
The first one is super-fast at making bagels, but he does give a
slow-motion show of a couple of bagels to show his technique.
--
Christine in Finland
christal63 (at) gmail (dot) com
graham
"Christine BA" <chris...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:iffvkq$uqn$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
Graham
Barry Harmon
@news.eternal-september.org:
Looks like his dough is a bit wetter than the typical bagel dough,
otherwise I don't think the dough would stick to itself that well. The
single tuck and quick roll wouldn't work with my 55% dough.
I really admire his technique. I guess when you've been doing it for a
few years you get to where you can do it really well and fast.
Barry
graham
"Barry Harmon" <john...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9E5DA45D3FFC4jo...@209.197.15.254...
Graham
Motzarella
"Barry Harmon" wrote in message
news:Xns9E5CE6B7485A6jo...@209.197.15.254...
Barry
Since you are offering. I have only been reading fiction lately.
Alan
Barry Harmon
>>
>
> You bake them for 4 minutes, then ask them (force them?!) to do a half
> flip on to the baking surface. I can give you the full Maggie Glezer
> write up on the thing if you want it. It's rezlly pretty interesting.
>
> Barry
>
> Since you are offering. I have only been reading fiction lately.
>
> Alan
>
>
From "A Blessing of Bread," by Maggie Glezer, page 138.
"Boiling is what gives bagels their gloss, thin crust, and shape,
despite the high heat in which they are baked. Mr. Yoss boils his
bagels just until they float to the surface and then immediately skims
them out. You need only water for this: The malt and sugar used in
some recipes are unnecessary additions.
The one odd piece of equipment you will need is the planks on which the
bagels are first baked. Here's how they work: The wet boiled bagels
are placed in lines on the wet burlap-covered planks and baked just long
enough to dry their tops while their bottoms stay soft and wet. As soon
as the tops are dry, the planks are tipped over so the bagels flip off,
their dry tops become the bottoms, and they finish baking. The planks
prevent the wet boiled bagels from sticking to the baking stone and
allow them to be flipped once their tops are dry, giving them their
symmetrically round cross section -- if baked without flipping they rise
too high, giving them a more hemispherical cross section.
For the planks: You need lengths of 1-by-4-inch (really 2-by-8.5-cm)
untreated pine boards the same length as your baking stone's longest
dimension. Four planks will fit onto my baking stone, so I use three,
because you need free space on which to dump the bagels; you will have
to measure your baking stone to decide how many will fit. Cut burlap
upholstry webbing (availble at upholsterers' shops) into pieces that are
slightly longer that the planks. Fold the raw edges under at each end
to make the webbing fit exactly, and then staple them down (you can use
stainless steel staples if you prefer, but they are not necessary).
Note that in the beginning, the planks will ooze hot sap, so do be
careful when handling them and setting them down."
Barry
Dick Margulis
>
> Looks like his dough is a bit wetter than the typical bagel dough,
> otherwise I don't think the dough would stick to itself that well. The
> single tuck and quick roll wouldn't work with my 55% dough.
>
I've become convinced that the secret is not low hydration but high
gluten development. Try going a little wetter, Barry.
> I really admire his technique. I guess when you've been doing it for a
> few years you get to where you can do it really well and fast.
It doesn't take a few years if you are in a production environment. It
takes less than a week if you're spending an hour a night on one task
like that, with an experienced baker working next to you.
Barry Harmon
news:FPmdnS1setMRRIDQ...@supernews.com:
> On 12/29/2010 4:09 PM, Barry Harmon wrote:
>
>>
>> Looks like his dough is a bit wetter than the typical bagel dough,
>> otherwise I don't think the dough would stick to itself that well. The
>> single tuck and quick roll wouldn't work with my 55% dough.
>>
>
> I've become convinced that the secret is not low hydration but high
> gluten development. Try going a little wetter, Barry.
>
I just made a batch of bagels where I went a bit wetter and the results so
far are a bit better. They are just about to get boiled and baked.
The gluten thought is probably right, since most recipes I've seen for
bagels stress that one must have very high glutgen flour. What I can't
quite square is that bagels are an old bread, so there is a pretty high
probability that the original bagel was either made with flour that was
probably inferior (lower protein level) to what we have to work with today
or it was substantially different from the bagel we know today. None of my
old bread books has a recipe for bagels.
The overnight development of the shaped bagels amounts to the no-knead
method, where one substitutes time for activity. Everything old is new
again, all over again. Or, as Yogi said, "It's deja vu all over again."
Barry
graham
original ones would have not been made with a white flour either.
Graham
Dick Margulis
>>
>> The gluten thought is probably right, since most recipes I've seen for
>> bagels stress that one must have very high glutgen flour. What I can't
>> quite square is that bagels are an old bread, so there is a pretty high
>> probability that the original bagel was either made with flour that was
>> probably inferior (lower protein level) to what we have to work with today
>> or it was substantially different from the bagel we know today. None of
>> my
>> old bread books has a recipe for bagels.
>>
>> The overnight development of the shaped bagels amounts to the no-knead
>> method, where one substitutes time for activity. Everything old is new
>> again, all over again. Or, as Yogi said, "It's deja vu all over again."
>>
>> Barry
>>
> Have you tried making them with a low protein flour? Chances are that the
> original ones would have not been made with a white flour either.
> Graham
>
>
First, my comment about high gluten, higher hydration being the key
referred specifically to my ideal bagel--maybe not yours. This is the
bagel, recently rediscovered, that I grew up on in Cleveland, where it
was made by first-generation immigrants and where the art was
subsequently lost. So this is a specific style I'm talking about--tough
and chewy, with a thin crust and a crumb that is reasonably tight but
nonetheless with scattered large eyes.
As to the history, if the bagel indeed began its life as a festival
bread (the "king's stirrups" hypothesis), then it's quite possible that
the baker's secret was the addition of gluten, which can be extracted
from flour of any protein level by manual means and can then be added
back to make a dough of arbitrary strength. Whether that step was part
of the original bagel's production is something I won't speculate on.
But it's a step that could have been added at any point in the bagel's
history prior to the availability of North American hard wheats.
Boron Elgar
<marg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>On 12/29/2010 4:09 PM, Barry Harmon wrote:
>
>>
>> Looks like his dough is a bit wetter than the typical bagel dough,
>> otherwise I don't think the dough would stick to itself that well. The
>> single tuck and quick roll wouldn't work with my 55% dough.
>>
>
>I've become convinced that the secret is not low hydration but high
>gluten development. Try going a little wetter, Barry.
My bagel dough is quite sticky and I often wet my hands to roll and
shape. I have an odd recipe with only one proof (after shaping), if
you do not count the pre-ferment. Damn odd technique works for me,
though, and I get lovely, blistery bagels from it.
>> I really admire his technique. I guess when you've been doing it for a
>> few years you get to where you can do it really well and fast.
>
>It doesn't take a few years if you are in a production environment. It
>takes less than a week if you're spending an hour a night on one task
>like that, with an experienced baker working next to you.
Then it becomes a job and not some really exciting artsy-fartsy
creation that comes out of my very own kitchen.
Boron
Barry Harmon
> On 12/31/2010 9:49 AM, graham wrote:
>
>>>
>>> The gluten thought is probably right, since most recipes I've seen
>>> for bagels stress that one must have very high glutgen flour. What
>>> I can't quite square is that bagels are an old bread, so there is a
>>> pretty high probability that the original bagel was either made with
>>> flour that was probably inferior (lower protein level) to what we
>>> have to work with today or it was substantially different from the
>>> bagel we know today. None of my
>>> old bread books has a recipe for bagels.
>>>
>>> The overnight development of the shaped bagels amounts to the
>>> no-knead method, where one substitutes time for activity.
>>> Everything old is new again, all over again. Or, as Yogi said,
>>> "It's deja vu all over again."
>>>
>>> Barry
>>>
>> Have you tried making them with a low protein flour? Chances are
>> that the original ones would have not been made with a white flour
>> either. Graham
>>
>>
>
> First, my comment about high gluten, higher hydration being the key
> referred specifically to my ideal bagel--maybe not yours. This is the
> bagel, recently rediscovered, that I grew up on in Cleveland,
Where were you when the Cuyahoga burned? lol.
Barry
Dick Margulis
bagel, recently rediscovered, that I grew up on in Cleveland,
>
> Where were you when the Cuyahoga burned? lol.
In New York, laughing my ass off.
Motzarella
"Barry Harmon" wrote in message
news:Xns9E5E5AB30CDFCjo...@209.197.15.254...
Barry
Barry,
Thanks for the directions. As I have been known to bake bagels with the
slightest bit of hangover, multiple times I have failed to add malt syrup to
the water. Only after the fact have I noticed that my failure to do so left
me with a diminished sheen on the bagels.
As for the planks, I am not sure why I would want to use them as I never
turn my bagels over. I place them on a slightly oiled baking sheet on the
stone. When they have baked for 12 minutes at 500F, I am done.
Alan
p.s. At my age, I like to keep things fairly simple. :)
Barry Harmon
news:ifoni0$m51$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
Alan,
I add the malt to the dough and not the water and I get a great shine on
the bagels..
Barry
Motzarella
"Barry Harmon" wrote in message
news:Xns9E616B58A75joh...@209.197.15.254...
Alan,
Barry
Barry,
I also add the malt to the dough. Guess it will be one of life's mysteries.
Alan