Homemade New York Style Sourdough Discard Bagel Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why won't my sourdough bagel rise? ›

If your weak sourdough starter is weak, your dough won't rise and your bagels will be dense and gummy. Additionally, a weak starter could make fermentation occur too slowly and will introduce too much acid to the dough. Acidification will cause gluten to break down and weaken the dough too much.

Sourdough discard bread combines sourdough discard with either active-dry or instant yeast, resulting in a quicker proofing times. In contrast, sourdough bread relies solely on an active sourdough starter for leavening.

When too much flour is kneaded in, bagels become dense, hard and tough, instead of crisp and chewy. It can easily take 10 minutes of mixing and kneading before the right texture and gluten strength is achieved. This is what the inside of a well-made bagel should look like.

Most commonly, the issue here has to do with temperature (which is very important). If your sourdough starter is kept at a low temp, even 70°F (21°C), it will slow fermentation activity and appear to be sluggish, taking longer to rise and progress through the typical signs of fermentation. The solution: keep it warm.

While my recipe aims for 24 to 36 hours of proofing in the fridge, I've successfully gone up to 40 hours. Any longer than that, though, and the entrapped gases beneath the surface of the crust will start to slip away, creating a slightly porous/matte crust with fewer blisters.

I recommend keeping sourdough discard for about one week, but I do know others who keep it for much longer. After one week, there is a higher risk of mold or bad bacteria growing on the discard.

Are There Health Benefits in Discard? Yes, there are actually several health benefits to using sourdough discard in your cooking and baking. Sourdough discard is rich in probiotics, which can help promote a healthy gut microbiome and improve digestion.

Yes you can use sourdough discard straight from the fridge, you don't need to let it come to room temperature if you don't want to. What is this?

Moreira: Usually if you get dense bagels, it's because they were underproofed. But it could also be that your yeast is bad. When you're at home using dry yeast—especially if you don't use it that often—you should always bloom the yeast in a little bit of sugar and water to make sure it's active.

Bread flour – Because of its high protein content, bread flour makes these homemade bagels delightfully chewy. This recipe also works with all-purpose flour, they're just a bit less chewy than bagels made with bread flour.

Why are my sourdough bagels so dense? ›

One of the most common mistakes is having a dough temperature that's too low for the starter to feed on all the flour in the dough, resulting in a crumb that's dense, with fewer openings. "Starter is happiest and most active at around 75 degrees.

Shape the bagels: When the dough is ready, punch it down to release any air bubbles. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. (Just eyeball it—doesn't need to be perfect!) Shape each piece into a ball.

Step 6: Shaping 2.

Once you have the hole, place both your index fingers from the opposing sides into the hole and start to spin it around your fingers very carefully in order to open up the hole, stretching the dough a little bit. The hole shall have a 2-3 cm diameter, while the bagel 6-7 cm.

If your bagel doesn't float, cover the unboiled bagels and let them rise for another 10 minutes. Grab my Sourdough Discard Bagels recipe at the link in my bio #sourdoughdiscardrecipe #bagels #bageltok #thefloattest #makingbagels #homemadebagels.

Bagels deflate when they're overproofed. If you're making wood-fired bagels and leave them on the board too long before flipping, then they get flat too, but I don't think that's a problem many home cooks are having. I think they're overproofed and/or they're boiling longer than they need to.

One possibility is that your starter is not active enough. If your starter is not active, it will not produce enough gas to leaven the bread. Another possibility is that you are not using enough starter. If you are not using enough starter, the bread will not have enough gluten to rise properly.

If your starter gets completely covered on top with bubbles but does not rise, it is healthy but may just be a wet mix. Try reducing the water in your next feeding and see if you have different results.