A couple of years ago, in Canada , I saw this: bagels in a deep oven wood fire and had an ambition to start doing this in Sheffield.
Having spoke to Gary, owner of Nether Edge Pizza Company a couple of weeks ago, we decided to give it a go.
I set about making some bagel boards: should i look for some cedar, or will pine do? What weave of burlap do i need? Well, like lots of these things, you can do all the research you like but it seems to be simply a matter of getting started and seeing what happens.
I chose some pine conveniently stored in my garage and bought some burlap from Whaleys in Bradford that would seem tough enough to deal with the oven. (Jute role is more for hemming and seems fragile) .
With the boards made i went down to the Abbyedale Road Nether Edge Pizza shop and met an enthusiastic Theo and Somerset. Theo is clearly an expert on the oven and, as i would find out, holds no fear in putting his hands in.
Preparing the bagels is no different of course : i had prooved them in the fridge beforehand, a bit shorter than ususal for practical reasons, and they are boiled cooled and then set on the boards, not oven trays.
So then to the key thing: the oven.
What was not clear to me before is that the oven has clear heat gradients – pizzas are placed first at the back and then gradually brought forward, Theo told me. But this flexibility is not possible with bagels. The idea is to place them top down on the boards , flip them after some minutes (how many will depend on the oven) so that the bottoms are on the stone and the tops face up.
Last night we had the oven too hot and this clearly showed that the for the first batch the crust formed too quickly and left a doughy bread. The second batch were better. Maybe the next batch better still. Watch this space!
I have been amazed at how the flour is no longer cool but warm to the touch. How the dough is warm coming out the mixer and already feels airy. And with increased demand (cannot knock that!) this variation makes it hard getting the product absolutely right each time.
Sheffield Organic Growers:
I have more capacity and can starting baking other jewish specialist breads. You might expect Challah is on the list but Gerry does a fine Challah already; so that can wait. Bialys are the thing; of which more another time.
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