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Hello,

 With the recent increase in food prices everyone is suffering under, I've been making more and more of my families food in the kitchen, rather than buying it pre-fab (or whatever you call pre-made food).  Among many success at this I've "conquered"*: english muffins, crumpets, granola bars, bread, hot dog/hamburger buns, fruit roll-ups, salsa, tomato sauce, etc...  However, I seem to have one daily commestable that eludes my cooking genius**; the bagel.

I've made many attempts at these wonderful, round, single-serve, vehicles for cream cheese, but have met with limited success.  The first attempt left me with rather dry, salty, uninspired little rounds.  They were servicable, but not nearly what I think of when I picture a bagel.  The second attempt met with more success, producing "bagel sticks" (as I lacked the ambition for proper shaping) that were fluffy, nicely chewy, tasty, yet homunculus looking and with no outer crust (very homogenious softness).  I figured my failures there were due to the accidental omission of salt, and a low baking temperature.

 Undaunted I tried again, this time carefully setting out all the ingredients I would need so that the salt wouldn't fall by the wayside.  I also cooked them at a higher temperature, dropping it after 5 minutes (as I do with bread 500 -> 450).  However, they still failed to produce a nice, shiny, chewy/crunchy crust.  Rather, they looked shriveled and raisen like.  They hadn't lost any size during the baking... they just didn't seem to grow and smooth out any.  They just seemed to "freeze" in the same semi-wrinkled, post-boiling shape that they went into the oven with.

So I'm asking for help to tweak my method so that I have a chance at producing truely impressive "bagel shop" bagels.  Here is my method so far:

-Make the dough and allow to double in size (You're basic mix and proof).  During the ferment, I do one de-gas and fold.
-Seperate dough with a sharp knife and shape.  Shaped bagels are placed between two sheets of wax paper and allowed to rise for 45 minutes to an hour... until puffy.
-Bagels are placed in boiling water and allowed to boil for 2 minutes, turned, and boiled 2 minutes longer.
-They are removed from the water and placed on a baking sheet covered in corn flower.  The bagels are allowed to rest for 15 minutes, then baked.
-Last batch was baked at 500º F for 5 minutes, then lowered to 450ºF for another 15.
-Finally, they are cooled on a wire rack.

I wish I could provide a picture of these bagels, but I'm pretty sure my wife ate the last one yesterday morning (as I said, they looked funky, but tasted pretty good).  If I find a spare one sitting around somewhere... or if I have another partial success, I'll take a snapshot of it and post it here.

I'm planning on giving the sourdough bagel recipe I saw here a try, since the bagels pictured are exactly what I'm trying to accomplish... and I have some starter that's looking at me with big doe-eyes, wanting to be used in something.

Any help is greatly appreciated in this endevour.

Cheers,
Taco

*Conquered read as "Met or exceeded market quality."

**Genius read as "Base level of competence".

Hi all,

I froze my starter to preserve it somehow when I was away.I now am trying to revive it, but it looks sluggish. I have fed it with Ehanner method (doubling method), twice a day, with no sign that it is active. So far it smells great and bubbles a bit (very little), but no rise whatsoever.

Has anyone encountered the same problem? And how do I get my beloved starter back? I miss it... :-(

-E- 

Sourdough boules pic 1 

Sourdough boules pic 2

OK, I'm new to uploading images, so if I didn't do this right, somebody please let me know the right way to get one's images into a post.

I had been contributing to the responses to Somegeek's 'My First Loaves (pics)' forum thread and watching Hans bake amazing loaves and I figured it was time to stop writing and do some baking.

These are sourdough boules made using Jeffrey Hamelman's 'Vermont Sourdough' recipe in his wonderful book 'Bread' as a guide. My sourdough starter is around 7 weeks old by now. I bulk fermented the dough for around 3 1/2 hours, folding 2 times during this phase. Then I shaped the loaves and let them proof in bannetons for an hour before retarding in the fridge for 12 hours. After taking them out I let the loaves warm up for 2 hours while I preheated the oven to 465 degrees. Then I removed them from the bannetons, slashed (not so well), and baked, using a steam pan on the bottom rack and a spritzer bottle a couple of times in the first 3 or 4 minutes. After 10 minutes I turned the loaves and removed the steam-pan, turning the oven down to 440 and baking another 22 minutes.

The loaves have a lovely airy crumb, which I will take a picture of, and a nice crunchy crust. The crust is a deep dark brown, maybe a little darker than I expected, especially toward the bottom, and the internal temperature was 205 degrees (or more). There are some light and tantalizing sour notes, but I thought with the 12 hour retarding it would have gained a more full sour taste. I was reading Maggie Glezer's 'Artisan Baking' book, where she says that the temperature for developing the acetic lactobacillus is around 68 degrees, which got me thinking. My kitchen was around 75 degrees last night. Has anyone tried bulk fermentation of sourdough where the dough is retarded for just, say, a half hour at a time, alternating with longer stretches at room temperature? I ask because doing so would get several periods during which the dough would be at Glezer's optimal temp for developing the sour in the sourdough.

I'm not new to baking bread, but I am to baking sourdough. As all you experienced sourdough bakers already know, there is something magical about making great-tasting bread without commercial yeast. I felt that thrill this time!

Soundman (David)

My 3+ month old starter doesn't seem to rise much lately.  It does a little when it's left out, but it doesn't seem to at all in the fridge.  My breads are rising fine and taste sour or not depending on how I treat them, but I wonder if the starter is as healthy as it should be. 

When it is on the counter I feed it twice a day as it gets very foamy, fluffy and rises a bit and falls.  In the fridge, I feed it about every three days or so, although sometimes sooner because it develops hooch.

I feed it flour equal in volume to the starter but with a bit less water to make a fairly thick batter.  Mostly I feed it KA AP, but sometimes add a bit of organic whole grain rye.

Since it seems to work well, I've assumed things are fine, but then I realized I could be wearing it down or something without knowing it and I'd be sunk.

I guess the short question to this long post is- If a starter doesn't rise after a feeding is it still healthy?

Thanks,

Marni