Notes on the first attempt

So I was able to replicate bagels at home. But here's the thing: They tasted like shit.
So here are some observations.
First of all under NO circumstances should one use King Arthur Unbleached White Whole Wheat Flour for making bagels. Now, don't get me wrong, I like King Arthur Flour. They make great flour, but don't believe for a second that this flour "doesn't taste like whole wheat" because it absolutely does. There's nothing white about this flour. Like my girlfriend said after eating one of these polished turds: "If I can't eat a bagel with just butter, something's wrong" She's right, something was wrong: It was the DAMN FLOUR. I knew it too when I was kneading, because the dough smelled like whole wheat, but I was too far in to stop.
Here's a pic of the actual bag of flour I used just in case there's any confusion.




















Avoid this flour like the plague if you're making bagels. Trust me. Maybe they make good sandwiches, but I wouldn't know because after tasting them they went into the trash.

I'm not so sure about leaving some of the yeast out and adding it to the dough step after the sponge. My guess is that the idea was that there'd be more yeast available during the cold fermentation step or something. Once the yeast is in there, it's in there, and I don't think adding more at the dough step matters. Next time I'm putting all the yeast in at the very beginning. The yeast metabolize at a certain rate. Once it's active it's active. It's not like the yeast in the sponge knows that there's more yeast on the way "Oh shit, we should eat faster, cuz here comes some more yeast!" BZZZZZT!!

Barley syrup in the boiling water: observations
I added a tablespoon of the barley malt in the boiling water, because I'd read on some peoples' blogs that they thought it gave the bagels a better appearance and "more of a bagel flavor". I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I tried this exact recipe 2 days later with different flour, boiled some bagels with plain water, and some with the barley syrup added, and I couldn't see or taste a difference at all. On the plus side, it caused the water to boil over more easily and created a huge brown mess under my burners that was a pain in the ass to clean up. So try this yourself. Oh, and I've been having dreams about sticky brown goo all over everything since then, and I think I smell barley syrup all the time now. That stuff may be evil. I'll keep you posted.

Attempt number 2: More polished turds??
After the first attempt/debacle, I tried a couple of days later with some Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose Flour we had laying around in the cabinet. Here's a pic of that flour.




















I followed the exact same recipe and here's what I got:
















Notice the color. THEY'RE WHITE. Like a bagel should be. They were a little doughy tasting to me, but Tricia said they were fine. They were a shit ton better than those other whole wheat monstrosities. These were chewy, bagelly gut bombs. In short, they were really closer to a real bagel than what I've had so far. Exactly? I don't think so. I think I need to add an autolyse step, and I have to try the drying step as well. But these would work. For a relatively quick recipe, with the right flour, I was able to whip up some passable bagels. The only part that took time was the kneading, the boiling, and the baking. Not bad. 15 min for kneading, and maybe 20 minutes with the boiling, topping and baking at the same time.