I’ve found myself eating a lot of bagels. The dense but soft store-bought kind. :-\
Wanted to do a NY-style bagel. I got a crispy chewy exterior and a light interior. Pretty damn good. Instead of malt syrup I used Dark Candi syrup in the mix. None for the boiling water. And I did a 24 hour ferment.
Well worth the effort! I’m going to have to work out a weekly schedule for these things… Too bad I don’t have any smoked salmon around. The crumb is light, bubbly and cohesive. Nothing crumbly about these bagels. The exterior is shiny, crisp and chewy. Made them with about 90% bread flour 10% AP. Next time all AP to see how that turns out.
I saw a tip in Cooks Illustrated a few months back to bake the baking soda to convert it from sodium bicarbonate to sodium carbonate which is a stronger base. Not as strong as lye but a good substitute according to the article. Haven’t tried it yet myself.
The lye hydrolizes the proteins in the flour and allows the outside to brown well.
I read that it can be found at Lowes under the name Crystal Drain Opener, but I need to check that out to be sure. This is info from The Fresh Loaf, an extremely good website for baking. When I looked several years ago for a drain opener that contained lye, I came up with nothing at several different supermarkets.
I guess I need to update this. That company no longer sells the “technical grade” lye, but they do sell food grade. Here’s a link to that. It’s not too bad, but as always shipping hits you pretty hard.