Step 1 – Make a stiff sourdough starter (50% hydration)

• Take 45g of your original sourdough starter
• + 50g of bread flour
• + 25g water
• =120g of stiff sourdough starter that we need in this recipe

Step 2 – Mix the dough ingredients

• In a mixer, mix dough ingredients together
• It’s a really stiff dough, so it will be tough to mix by hand, but doable —just make sure there are no hard clumps
• Add your roughly cut up frozen blueberries last and mix JUST UNTIL it’s incorporated

Step 3 – Bulk Proof/1st Rise

• Dump onto your table and roughly knead into a ball,
• put in a bowl seam side down, cover,
• rest for 5hrs in a 72F room
• calibrate your times if your room is colder or warmer, do your best guess.

Step 4 – Shaping

• Uncover, de-gas (punch down the dough) and divide into 6 pieces.
• Shape into bagels…

What professionals do:

• Roll dough into a log. Place one end on top of the other.  With your palm, roll the ends together until they become one.
• I’ve never had success with this (maybe because I’m too much of a novice), I always end up with misshapen bagels

The bagel shaping method I’ve had the most success with:

• The snake eating its own tail method
• Rolling dough into a log. 
• Flatten one end of the log. 
• Then roll the opposite end of the log little smaller. 
• Take the flat end and wrap it around the other end (like a snake eating its own tail)
•  Pinch the seams.
• Put bagels on a tray that’s been dusted with cornmeal —this will prevent sticking.

Step 5 – Cold Proofing/2nd Rise

• Cover entire tray with a plastic bag
• put in your fridge for cold proofing,
• min 8hrs, max 18hrs.

Step 6 – Boiling the dough

• Preheat your oven to 475°F (245°C) with convection or 500°F (260°C) without convection.
• Boil water in a WIDE pot. Add 2 Tbsp of molasses. Not too much.
• Put cooling tray next to the pot because you will be placing the bagels immediately there after boiling.
• Take bagels out of the fridge and boil each side of 1 bagel for 30 sec.
• Place on a cooling tray
• Gently transfer the bagels onto your Dutch oven lined with parchment paper

Step 7 – Baking

• Bagels are best baked in 2 parts
• The first part with steam, the second part without to develop the crust.
• The steam helps the dough thoroughly bake before the crust burns.
• You can use your Dutch oven to bake your bagels OR use the open bake method.
• Bake with DO (lid on) at 500F for 10 min.
• Then turn down your oven to 450F, bake with lid off for 10 min.
• Put bagels on a cooling rack for 20ish min.  Enjoy.