So What Makes a Good Bagel Anyway?

 Who doesn't love a good bagel? I'm always on the hunt for a really good bagel, and you really can taste the difference between a high-fructose corn syrup commercial oven-baked steam bagel and a water-boiled baked bagel from a mom and pop shop. 

Now when your in a rush it's hard to care about the best bagel option before that killer meeting, but when it's Sunday morning with the paper or iPad and your looking for a great spot to tuck into for an hour there are 

good and bad options. 

Here's the difference in the creation of a bagel:

"At its most basic, traditional bagel dough contains wheat flour (without germ or bran), salt, water, and yeast leavening. Bread flour or other high gluten flours are preferred to create the firm and dense but spongy bagel shape and chewy texture. Most bagel recipes call for the addition of a sweetener to the dough, often barley malt (syrup or crystals), honey, sugar, with or without eggs, milk or butter. Leavening can be accomplished using either a sourdough technique or using commercially produced yeast.

Bagels are traditionally made by:

1. mixing and kneading the ingredients to form the dough
2. shaping the dough into the traditional bagel shape, round with a hole in the middle
3. proofing the bagels for at least 12 hours at low temperature (40-50 °F = 4.5-10 °C)
4. boiling each bagel in water that may or may not contain additives such as lye, baking soda, barley malt syrup, or honey
5. baking at between 175 °C and 315 °C (about 350-600 °F)

In recent years, a variant of this process has emerged, producing what is sometimes called the steam bagel. To make a steam bagel, the process of boiling is skipped, and the bagels are instead baked in an oven equipped with a steam injection system. In commercial bagel production, the steam bagel process requires less labor, since bagels need only be directly handled once, at the shaping stage. Thereafter, the bagels need never be removed from their pans as they are refrigerated and then steam-baked. The steam-bagel is not considered to be a genuine bagel by purists, as it results in a fluffier, softer, less chewy product more akin to a finger roll that happens to be shaped like a bagel."

Boiled vs. Steam

So now that you know the difference in quality, where can you find these different bagels?

Water-boiled bagels = Good bagels

Sacramento Bagel - 4701 H St Sac, CA 95819

 Main Street Bagel Cafe - 1580 W El Camino Avenue Sac, CA 95833

Steam-baked bagels = not nearly as good bagels

Noah's Bagels - all locations

Noah's used to have water-boiled bagels but after multiple sales of the company there quality has changed drastically, and their menu has greatly diversified. Thus, this place is great for a quick bagel, but not a great bagel experience if you have time.

Costco, Panara, La Bou, and usually anyone that doesn't specialize in bagels will have gotten them from a food manufacturing company (ex. SYSCO)