18 Mistakes You're Making With Homemade Bagels

Ah, the bagel. A humble ring-shaped bread with immigrant roots that has conquered America to become its breakfast champion. From its inception in Jewish communities in Poland centuries ago, the recipe has virtually remained unchanged. It's a mix of flour, water, sugar, salt, and yeast that's fermented, shaped, boiled, and baked. Yet its conceptual simplicity is deceptive: Much like looking effortless secretly takes a lot of effort, creating bagels from scratch actually requires a certain level of finesse.

I tried bagels for the first time in New York City in 2016, and since then, my life has been a quest for finding — or creating — a bagel with a crust of impeccable brown, a core of exquisite chewiness. This journey has led me to sample countless bagels, dabble in homegrown efforts, and, most recently, host a bagel brunch at Stricha, a Tbilisi-based vegan café. Now, we are happy to share our insights on creating the perfect homemade bagel (though don't expect to nail it on the first try, as it takes practice).

Most bagel recipes stick to strictly basic ingredients: flour, water, sweetener, yeast, and salt. Lack of fat and moisture from butter and eggs found in more tender members of the bread family results in a dough that's on the stiff and dry side of the spectrum. Kneading that mix into an elastic ball might take considerable effort, and adjusting the recipe by adding more water to help it come together might be tempting. However, you need to fight that temptation.

Bagel dough operates within a 55% to 65% hydration range, lower than your average bread. This frugality of moisture gives the bagel its characteristic chewiness and tight crumb. To calculate dough hydration percentage, you'll need to divide the amount of water by the flour, then multiply by 100. A wetter dough yields a crispier, breadier bagel that's easier to handle, but nudging the hydration down to 60% will create a more authentically chewy treat.

The single most desired feature of bagels is their chewiness. Every step revolves around it: using high-protein flour, kneading well to develop gluten, fermenting for an appropriate amount of time, and boiling the rings. Let's zero in on the fermentation step.

While you could let the yeast dough rise in a classic fashion — at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes — then go straight to kettling and baking, the difference in flavor and texture when you let it rest in the fridge is palpable. This step is also known as retardation, and it can last up to 48 hours. Often skipped, it ups the chewiness and helps the yeast engage in the alpha-amylase reaction, developing a more complex flavor. Remember that lower proofing temperatures demand more yeast, while longer times require less. For flavorful results, try retarding for 12 to 18 hours at 35 F to 42 F.

Bagels rise in two stages, each equally crucial to the final product. The bulk fermentation stage, when the unshaped dough rests and rises, can take anywhere from one hour at room temperature to an additional four to 24 hours spent retarding in the fridge. Proofing, or the final rise of the shaped dough pre-cooking, happens next, and it might be tricky.

With bagels, slightly under-proofing is better than over-proofing — leave them too long, and they will deflate and have an off texture after cooking. If you shape them directly after room-temperature bulk fermentation, they'll need about an hour to proof. If you shape them from refrigerated dough, you'll need an hour and 30 minutes to two hours of proofing at room temperature. If they were shaped before cold-proofing, they'll need a very brief warm-up before boiling. Since proofing time will always vary, you'll need to follow visual cues: They'll need to grow larger and spring back slowly when poked.

By now, you should already be getting a hunch about bagels: they're not like the other bread family members. While mixing, kneading, and proofing the dough has a lot in common with other yeast breads, one crucial step sets bagels apart: boiling. Otherwise known as kettling, this process is essential for getting the right look and mouthfeel.

While some bagel makers have stopped following this traditional step in favor of steaming them, you don't want to skip it. Steaming will gelatinize the starch to create the signature shiny look, but not necessarily the right texture. For a perfect homemade bagel, you want the heat to penetrate the surface and seal the moisture within, cementing their shape and size, and making the interior chewier. For bagels with a lighter, airier flair, curtail your boiling time to around 45 seconds. But if you're set on all-around chewiness, let them bathe a tad longer, about 90 seconds on each side.

You might think that controlling the temperature of the dough and the environment around it is something out of a professional baker's handbook and not something you can easily do at home, but you're wrong. Baking will certainly be easier with a meat thermometer on hand. If you want the absolute best results, use it every step of the way.

First, the water you add to the dough should be lukewarm if you're on the clock, and cold if time's a luxury. Post-mixing, aim for a dough temperature of 78 F to 82 F, a room-temperature range perfect for bulk fermentation. Remember, after a chilly retardation spell (35 F to 42 F), your dough needs to warm to room temp before proofing at 85 F to 90 F and the subsequent plunge into boiling (not just hot) water — a crucial step. And finally, don't shy away from a hot oven; 450 F might seem excessive, but it's non-negotiable.

Should you ever feel like mixing things up and adding flavorings to your favorite homemade bagel recipe, timing is of the utmost importance. It might seem like it's best to incorporate them last minute, somewhere between the proofing and boiling stages, but that will lead to subpar results. When adding them toward the end of the recipe, especially if it's something chunky like chocolate chips, you risk not incorporating them well enough and falling off or burning as a result.

In fact, the best time to add mix-ins to homemade bagels is early on. Once the dough comes together into a smooth ball — about five minutes before you're done mixing it — it's ready to take in those flavors. Remember, if you're adding freshly rinsed ingredients, like blueberries, or oil-doused sun-dried tomato chunks, make sure to remove excess fat and moisture before adding them to the dough.

Fresh from the oven, the allure of a warm, aromatic bagel can be irresistible. After all the waiting and hard work, you want to reward yourself as soon as your baked treasure is cool enough to eat. But fight the urge to slice into it too soon. Patience is key. Let the steam escape and the bagel cool down for a perfect, clean split, then toast it again.

If you eat bagels regularly, you might want to invest in a special slicer under the threatening name "bagel guillotine." This nifty gadget offers a flawless cut, with no band-aids required. However, if you don't own one, there's a safe way to cut a bagel without a slicer. Lay the bagel flat, palm on top, and slice horizontally with a bread knife. Next, lift the half-sliced bagel, place the uncut side down, grip the already sliced upper half, and finish the job, cutting vertically this time.

Bagels have barely anything in common with pizza (if you don't count their love child known as bagel bites), yet they can benefit immensely from being treated with the same gadgets used for pizza-making. Suppose you're a homemade pizza aficionado with a pizza oven in your possession. In that case, try baking your bagels in it, since it's capable of creating the right amount of heat, breaching the gap between homemade and commercial bagels.

Don't own a pizza oven? Don't fret — there's a more affordable alternative. To create a really crisp exterior in a regular oven, you could try baking bagels on a pizza stone. Preheating it in the oven while you shape and boil bagels will increase the overall temperature in the vicinity, as well as help even heat distribution during baking, creating a perfect bagel crust.

Should you ever commit the crime of storing bagels in the fridge or uncovered on the counter — in other words, let them go stale — getting rid of them might seem like the natural, though tragic, next step. But do you really want to contribute to the world's massive amounts of food waste when it's easy to revive and reuse them? We didn't think so.

First, you want to master this clever bagel toasting trick: Preheat the oven to 350 F and place your stale bagels inside for a few minutes. This will release the moisture trapped in the starches back into the bagel flesh. If your bagels are really dry, dip them in a hot water bath before toasting to bring them back to life. Finally, you can always repurpose old bagels by incorporating them into French toast or frittata or turning them into chips and croutons.

Static Media owns and operates Tasting Table and Mashed.