Bagel dough calculator
Reinhart's bagels: 56% hydration, malt, a night in the fridge and a boil before baking.
Real bagels, the Reinhart Bread Baker’s Apprentice way: a stiff, low-hydration dough on high-gluten flour, sweetened only by malt, retarded overnight in the fridge, boiled, then baked hard.
How it works
A deliberately stiff dough
Water at just 56%, salt 1.9%, malt 1% and a modest 0.45% instant yeast on the strongest flour you can get — high-gluten if possible, bread flour at minimum. The dough should feel almost too firm — the stiffness is what bakes into the chew.
Shape, then the cold night
Shape rings the same day (~100 g each), then retard them overnight — up to two days — in the fridge. The float test tells you they are ready: a bagel that floats in cool water has fermented enough. The cold rest is where the flavor and the blistered crust come from.
Boil, then bake hard
Straight from the fridge into water at a rolling boil — with a spoonful of baking soda for alkalinity — about a minute per side, two for extra chew. Top while wet, and bake starting near 260 °C, dropping to ~230 °C, until deeply browned.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- Peter Reinhart, “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” — bagels — The Bread Baker’s Apprentice bagels: high-gluten flour, 56% water, malt, sponge, shaped overnight retard and the alkaline boil.
- Smitten Kitchen — Peter Reinhart’s bagels — A faithful reproduction of the same formula, used for the metric conversion.
FAQ
Why boil bagels at all?
The boil gelatinizes the surface, which caps oven spring — bagels are meant to be dense — and creates the glossy, chewy shell no wash can imitate. The baking soda pushes browning the way traditional lye or barley-malt boils do.
Do I need malt?
Malt is the bagel’s signature sweetness — barley malt syrup or diastatic malt powder at about 1%. Honey or brown sugar are Reinhart’s own listed substitutes; plain sugar is the last resort.
Why did my bagels wrinkle after boiling?
Overproofed before the boil — they should go into the water still dense. Next time shorten the warm rest before the fridge, or boil straight from cold.
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