Here we go! I just loved this dough so much and the talk of a bagel bake along made me want to try pretzel bagels!! So a batch for pretzel dogs and a batch for pretzel bagels it is!

You're seeing talk about hydration percentages today, and I realize some of you may not even know what that means - because there was a time I had no idea either. So let's break it down: The hydration of your dough is simply the percent of water in your recipe according to baker's percentages! 💡Fact About Baker's Percentages: the flour in your loaf recipe is ALWAYS 100%. Everything else in the recipe is considered a percentage of the flour weight! ⤵️For example: 550 g Flour = 100% 352 g Water = 64% 💧 (Hydration) 55 g Starter = 10% 11 g Salt = 2% So when you see people talking about hydration in their sourdough, this is what we're referring to! And if you're just starting out and wondering what % to start with, I recommend the example recipe I just gave you! It's low hydration and much easier to work with for beginners!

As you know I decided to do an experiment with @Henry Hunter 's Fool Proof Sourdough Loaf. I did one loaf according to his recipe with jalapenos, cheddar and bacon inclusions. The second loaf I made it an 80% hydration loaf with Italian Herb and Black Pepper inclusions. The doughs felt completely different. The 80% dough was of course a looser, silkier dough that needed a more gentle handling when shaping. It also started forming bubbles a lot earlier. In fact, right after the fermentolyse it had bubbles. I added the inclusions during the 2nd stretch and fold and they incorporated nicely. In the finished product the crumb is a little tighter than the other loaf. The oven spring was great. I even got some small blisters on the crust. Both loaves proved to be fool proof and absolutely delicious!!! I'll be making them again and again! They're husband approved! I bet your significant other and family will love them too. Do check out the breakfast of a champion... it's a slice of the Italian Herb & Black Pepper Loaf nicely oven toasted with grated cheddar and a boiled egg. Here's what they look like..