To make the dough:

1. Stir the 1 3/4 cups water and the barley malt syrup together and then mix with the flour, gluten and yeast. (If you have a 2-cup liquid measuring cup, you can just add the syrup to the water until the liquid comes up to the 2-cup mark, thus saving yourself a sticky 1/4-cup item to wash.) Whatever equipment you use, or if you just stir the dough together with a spoon, you want to get all of the flour well incorporated with no streaks. I use my bread machine and let it run on the "dough" cycle until it's mixed and then I turn it off. CI has you use a processor, pouring the water/syrup mixture through the tube into the flour/gluten/yeast mixture while it's running and keeping it going for about 20 seconds. You could also use the dough hook with your stand mixer.

2. Let the dough stand for 10 minutes. This is the only fiddly let-the-dough-sit step I kept from the original recipe, but it seems to be fairly important as it gives the water time to hydrate the flour before you add the salt. (It's called "autolyse.")

3. Add the salt to the dough and mix well, however you want to do that. I just turn the bread machine back on and let it run for a few more minutes.

4. Dump the dough out and knead briefly just to make sure that the salt has been evenly distributed. You will probably need to add more flour to make the dough smooth and un-sticky. Bagel dough should be quite firm, almost but not quite to the point of being dry. Then (and here's where the kitchen scale will come in handy) divide the dough into 12 pieces, which will be a little over 3 ounces each. I find that size to be about right--huge, pillowy bagels are not what you want. You can use a bench scraper or a big chef's knife to divide the dough up, so you may want to transfer your dough to a cutting board at this point. Cover the pieces with plastic wrap while you work on the next step.

5. Figure out what baking sheets or other pans you can use to let the bagels rise overnight in the fridge. I can't fit a standard-size 13 x 8 sheet in my own fridge , but I have access to another one that does accommodate that size. Depending on your own situation, you may have to use several smaller pans. Whatever you end up using, I'd advise spraying the pans with cooking spray before you sprinkle their bottoms with a fair amount of cornmeal to keep the bagels from sticking. It wouldn't hurt to line the pans with wax or parchment paper first, if you want to avoid washing the pans. Plan to leave plenty of room between the bagels for them to rise; I've found that trying to get all 12 bagels onto one 13 x 8 pan leads to smushed-together bagels once they've risen. Maybe 8 on one regular pan and the other 4 on a smaller one is the way to go.

6. Roll each piece of dough into a snake shape with tapered ends, maybe 8-10" long. Twist the ends in opposite directions so that there's somewhat of a spiraling effect. Wrap the log around your knuckles/palm, overlap the ends by a couple of inches on your palm, and squeeze to seal them together. You can also roll that join back and forth on the counter to make sure it's well sealed. Stretch the ring out so that the middle hole is at least 2" wide. As you make them, place the shaped bagels on the baking sheet(s) and cover with plastic wrap. Let them sit for an hour if you can possibly do so, as this step helps let the yeast get started working before you refrigerate the bagels. If it's 10:30 PM and you really need to get to bed, the world isn't going to come to an end if you just skip this step. The bagels won't rise as much, though. You could perhaps let them rise awhile in the morning at room temp before you boil them.

7. After an hour, add some plastic wrap going the other way over the bagels (so that you're really guarding against the bagels' drying out) and put the pan(s) into the fridge overnight. They can sit as long as 24 hours. CI says that they have to be refrigerated for at least 16 hours, but 8-12 hours is perfectly fine.

8. I've lowered the baking temp to 425⁰ from the 450⁰ that the original recipe calls for. If you're using a stone or steel, which is highly recommended, and you want to bake the bagels first thing in the morning, you can set your oven to turn on early so that everything is nice and hot when you get up. Leave the stone or steel in the oven so that it heats up gradually with the oven. (Sorry to tell you what you already know.)

9. Pour several cups of boiling water into a pan you can set directly on the baking stone or steel or onto the lowest possible rack of the oven and let that sit and fill the oven with steam while you boil the bagels. I used my biggest Pyrex baking dish here, pouring some of the boiling water into it before setting it on the stone and then pouring in the rest. I'm paranoid about shattering glass baking dishes after having that happen to me once, so putting some of the water in ahead of placing it on the stone should prevent any risk of that happening. A big metal baking dish would work better, if you have that. A rimmed baking sheet is too shallow to hold the volume of water you need. Prepare the rack or racks that you're going to use for baking the bagels. The most straightforward way to do this is to use one of your oven racks, covered with foil sprayed with cooking spray and with plenty of holes poked into the foil. You could also cover metal cooling racks with foil and do the spraying-and-poking routine.

10. Bring the water, sugar and baking soda to a boil in a big pot. I use my stock/soup pot. You can do at least three bagels at a time; depending on the size of your pot you can possibly do four. You may neeed to cut between the risen bagels if their sides are touching, but if you left them plenty of room then you shouldn't have to do this. Quickly put the group of bagels into the water and let them boil for 20-30 seconds. (Some recipes say it should be 2-3 minutes! That's crazy talk!) Try to keep track of the order in which you put the bagels in the water and flip them over in the same order, using the tool of your choice--I use a small spatula with holes. Let the other sides boil for the same amount of time, then remove them to the rack(s) you're going to use for baking,

11. Place the rack(s) in the middle of the oven, re-closing the oven door as quickly as possible to keep in the steam. Bake for 10 minutes; the tops of the bagels should be browned. Flip the bagels over and bake another 5-10 minutes. You want them good and brown, but don't overdo it. Sorry about the large-ish range on time, but every oven is different and I don't want you to burn these little lovelies. They're great eaten warm or within a few hours. After that you need to slice and freeze them for use later. Leftover bagels are best toasted, but the fresh ones don't need it.