Took me 6 weeks to figure out my dough was too cold

I kept making bagels that came out dense and flat no matter what I did. Followed the recipe exactly, same water temp, same proof time. Finally after like 6 weeks and maybe 20 failed batches I checked my dough temp right after mixing. It was sitting at 62F when it should have been around 78F. Turns out my kitchen was just too cold in the winter and the dough never warmed up enough. Now I use a thermometer on every batch. Anyone else deal with dough temp issues in a cold house?

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mila3952mo ago

Oh man, that's a lesson the hard way right there. There's this thing in life where people think following a recipe or instructions exactly is enough, but they forget about the environment around it - like the actual temperature of your kitchen or how humidity changes everything. Same thing happens with bread, with gardening, even with people. You can't control the situation just by reading the steps, you have to actually check what's happening in real time. It took you six weeks and a thermometer to learn that, and that's basically how most of life works too.

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