A bagel runs in nine steps: mix a stiff dough, divide it by weight, shape the rings, retard them overnight in the cold, boil them, top them, bake them, cool them, and bag them. The boil, a minute or so in water with barley malt, is what makes a bagel a bagel: it sets the crust before the oven, so the bagel stays dense and chewy and turns shiny. The overnight retard builds flavor and lets the bakery shape in the afternoon and boil at dawn. Dividing by weight keeps every bagel the same, which matters to a café buying by the dozen. In the example below, a New Jersey bagel bakery runs a morning.
The short version
- Nine steps: mix, divide, shape, retard, boil, top, bake, cool, bag.
- A stiff, low-water dough gives the dense chew.
- Divide by weight for even bagels.
- Retard overnight in the cold.
- Boil in malted water to set the crust.
- Seeds go on wet, straight from the boil; label sesame.
- TaroStack records the dough and the bagels as batches, linked by lot. More below.
The nine steps
| Step | What happens | What to record |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Mix | High-gluten flour, water, malt, yeast and salt to a stiff dough | Flour lot, dough temperature |
| 2. Divide | Cut to weight | Piece weight |
| 3. Shape | Rolled into rings | Count |
| 4. Retard | On boards, overnight in the cooler | In and out times |
| 5. Boil | In malted water, turned once | Time, water temperature |
| 6. Top | Seeds and toppings on, straight from the boil | Topping lots |
| 7. Bake | On boards then the stone | Oven temperature, time |
| 8. Cool | On racks | Time |
| 9. Bag | Bagged by the dozen or half dozen, coded | Bags, lot |
Bags and labels are in how to package bagels for sale, and what a bagel sells for in how to price bagels.
An example: a morning bake
Passaic Street Bagels, the made-up bagel bakery in Clifton, New Jersey, I use in these examples, shapes in the afternoon and boils at 4 a.m.:
| Step | What happened |
|---|---|
| Mix and divide | Flour lot HG-1003; 6 mixes; 720 pieces at 4 oz |
| Shape and retard | Into the walk-in at 3 p.m., out at 4 a.m. |
| Boil | In malted water, about a minute, turned once |
| Top | Sesame lot SS-0927, everything topping lot EV-0920 |
| Bake and cool | 18 minutes; 708 good bagels, 12 misshapen to the day-old bin |
| Bag | 50 bags of a dozen for cafés, the rest for the counter; lot PS-1004 |
The everything and sesame bagels come off the boil wet, so the seeds stick, and the café bags carry "Contains: wheat, sesame", as sesame labeling requirements explains. The 12 misshapen bagels go to the day-old bin at the counter.
Get the run sheet
Download the bagel production run sheet. Two sheets: a blank run sheet to print for each batch, with the nine steps, the check at each and its target, and spaces for the actual reading, the time and initials; and the same run filled in from the example. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The run sheet covers one morning. A dough mixed one afternoon, bagels boiled the next morning, two topping lots and 50 café bags: when a sesame lot is recalled, the trace has to run to every café.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack records the dough and the bagels as their own batches, linked by lot.
The dough as a batch. The afternoon's dough is a batch from its recipe, taking flour, malt and salt off stock with their lots.
Bagels from the dough. The morning's bake is a batch that uses the dough and the toppings, with its own lot, and records good bagels and the day-old ones.
Where it went. Each café's order records the lot it got, so one recall report runs from a sesame lot to every café.
| The job | Clipboard | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| The afternoon's dough | A note on the board | A batch with its lots |
| Bagels made and misshapen | Counted at the end | On the batch |
| Which cafés got a lot | Invoices | One recall report |
Recipes, batches, lots and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.