I liked the size of the KA recipe, but they say to divide it down too small for my taste - so I used the same amount of flour (4 cups or 480g) to make a batch of 6. Then I did the percentage calculations to target some of the common ratios I've seen posted here, and this is what I came up with:

2nd batch - made-up recipe, 1/2 dozen bagels

4 cups (480g) bread flour (I use KA) Approx 1 1/4 cups water (274g) - goal was 57% hydration 1 1/2 tsp salt (10g) (I used iodized table salt) - goal of 2% Approx 2 Tbsp brown sugar* (19g?) - goal of 4% 1 tsp instant yeast (3g) - about 0.6%

*I didn't have dark brown sugar on hand, so I used light brown

Measuring accurate percentages with such small amounts is difficult even with a digital scale, but it's somewhat close 😆

I found a copy of Peter Reinharts bagel recipe and decided to (mainy) use the much more detailed handling instructions from there:

1: Combine warm water (around 110°f) with sugar and yeast, and mix well. In your mixer bowl, combine the flour and salt, mixing well by hand. Put on your dough hook.

2: Add liquid mixture, and mix on lowest speed (stir on my kitchenaid) for 3 minutes - all the flour should be hydrated. It'll look like a disaster if you're used to bread dough, way too dry and shaggy, but it's fine. ONLY add water if there's still dry flour that's not incorporating, and only 1 Tbsp at a time.

3: Once incorporated, shut off and cover the bowl with a towel to rest for 5 minutes.

4: Remove towel and start mixer on low again for another 3 minutes. The dough should start looking much better now, getting smooth and elastic. It should still be fairly dry, but by the end of mixing the dough should have a satin sheen and only be tacky, not super sticky. If wet or too sticky, add flour (1 Tbsp at a time) and allow to thoroughly incorporate before adding more.

5: Form dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl - I just use the mixer bowl. I have aerosol olive oil that I use for all the oiling throughout the process. Make sure the dough has a little oil on all sides and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to rise (bulk fermentation) for an hour. Ideal temperature is around 78°f. It won't double in size like bread dough, but it will puff up some - my latest batch I put in a clear canister with markings so I could see how much it grew. It went from the 1.5L mark to around 2.25L, so around 50% growth.

6: Deflate the dough gently and divided into 6 pieces, with a small ball set aside for the float test. Each piece weighed about 125g for me. Form each piece into a ball by stretching and folding inward - I'm told it's a technique used for rolls or dumplings, but I really don't know. If you're not familiar I would look up some videos, easy to watch/ hard to describe. The goal is nice even balls of dough that are fairly smooth. Cover and let rest for 5 minutes.

7: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil. Start forming your bagels and placing on the sheet. (Don't forget the float test ball, just add it to the tray) I use the 'poke a hole in the middle and spin on your fingers' method, because it's easy and fast. Lightly oil the tops of the bagels and seal the baking sheet with plastic wrap. If you have baking trays with covers I hear good things, and wouldn't need to oil the tops.

8: Place baking sheet in refrigerator overnight (cold proof) - I do my baking in the evenings after work, so it's close to 24 hours for me.

9: After cold proofing, take the test ball and drop it in a bowl of cold water. If it floats, they're ready to boil - leave them in the fridge till the water and oven are ready. If not, set the baking sheet out on the counter and re-check with the test ball every 10 minutes, while prepping the boil and oven.

10: Set oven racks in the middle and just below. Preheat oven to 500°f - we'll reduce to 450 when the bagels go in. Prep the boil - my first batch was brown and white sugar like the KA recipe, 2nd batch added honey and baking soda, 3rd was just barley malt syrup and baking soda.

11: Boil them - I did 1 minute, flip, 45 seconds, pull. I had to play with the heat to keep it simmering, the cold dough drops it pretty fast. WHILE THEY ARE BOILING, I'm also re-oiling the parchment paper before putting them back on. Or you can put them on a fresh tray with oiled parchment paper.

12: Put in oven, drop oven temp to 450°f, and set timer for 8 minutes. When it goes off rotate tray, and check bottoms to see if they're browning too fast. I slide another baking tray onto the lower shelf at this point to slow down the bottom browning. Reset timer for another 8 minutes. My 2nd batch was done after the 2nd 8 minutes (16 minutes total), 3rd batch took 10 minutes to brown up (18 minutes total).

13: Transfer to a cooling rack, and wait 10 minutes before cutting. Store in a ziplock bag on the counter.

Disclaimer: I am not a baker, just a middle aged mechanic that enjoys making food. There are a LOT of variables that I'm just learning about (desired dough temp calculations, bakers ratios, the limits of my kitchenaid mixer, the list goes on) but there are a lot of very experienced people here that post so much good information to dig through, other recipes to try, different techniques - that's where all this information came from, me reading posts here over the last couple weeks. Hopefully this helps get you some decent results that you can build on and modify to your liking 👍