Bonsai Bagels

Well, week one is done, and it was a very short but very intense week.

On Monday we were sold out within 25 minutes, and scrambling to put together a few more batches to appease the fabulous folks who wanted to support us, but got there too late. On Tuesday I arrived earlier to the shop and baked like a madman to increase our supply. We were sold out in 45 minutes.

Lesson 1 – you never know how big your demand is going to be.

We were floored by the response from the city, and on my two days off I’ve answered calls, answered the door, and had to remind people that we’re only just getting started. Oh, and we’re closed.

Demand was far greater than what we could supply.

Lesson 2 – here’s our process:

In the interest of transparency, let’s get into the nitty gritties.

First, we’ve upgraded two of our ingredients. We are now pushing for non-GMO (when we can find it) and/or organic Canola Oil. In response to some customers, we’re going to investigate other oils. We chose Canola because it has a small flavour profile, because it has a high burn temperature and because it was readily available. Organic and non-GMO are a lot harder to find.

We’re also headed towards local free-range eggs (organic would be a bonus). Again, this is tricky. We can only buy eggs from Interior Health accredited facilities, which rules out small to medium farmers. so we’re looking for contacts. We go through at least three dozen a day (or roughly one egg per 18 bagels – we’re making a lot of bagels).

Now that’s out of the way. Here’s the process.

Our mixer can handle a batch that includes 6kg of flour. We make the batch fresh using yeast that we’ve prepared at minimum the day before. It’s a two-day process so we can’t really do more than we plan for. We fudged it a little on day one to try and get more bagels out, but I wasn’t happy about that.

That batch needs to sit at least an hour to proof.

One batch can make roughly nine dozen bagels.

The oven fits between two and three dozen bagels at best. Those batches can be cycled at peak efficiency every 15 minutes. All of which is to say we can only bake roughly nine dozen bagels an hour (I love that this parallels our mixer load).

I get to the shop a little after two in the morning. Yup, 2am. Between two and three I’m setting up the shop, getting supplies ready, getting the equipment running, getting the boil kettles hot.

That leaves full-on baking from three to seven and maybe eight if I have help – or a total 45 dozen bagels. But I don’t stop there. I’m on track to bake 54 dozen bagels (and fast-approaching 60) every single day. But that’s it. That’s as far as our capacity will allow.

Wholesalers take up to 14 dozen. I’m capping wholesale until I can figure out how to get more baking done. I want to make sure that there are bagels here for walk-ins.

Now that’s still 40 dozen bagels to be sold from the shop. And I know that it’s not enough… but it’s all I can manage right now.

So, if you’re feeling generous, come in and order a half-dozen. I can guarantee that someone will be happy with your decision.

If you want to guarantee that you’re getting your bagels, come in and set up a subscription. With subscriptions we set aside a dozen bagels for you in the morning of your choice, and you can pick them up whenever you would like during the day. But we’re limiting subscriptions too! We still want to make sure that we have bagels here ready for our walk-ins 🙂

Lesson 3 – we haven’t got it all figured out

We’re going to make mistakes. Some of our early bagels are going to be strangely shaped (the joys of a hand-formed bagel!) And we’re not going to get everything right.

What we can promise is that week on week we’re going to get better. We’re already streamlining (so that we can push for 60 dozen) and we’re considering doing one-offs on our days off…

We’re trying to soak in the love and keep moving forward as the excitement of the first two weeks settles into a routine.

Thank you Vernon! Thank you to the Syilx-Okanagan people on whose land we sit! Thank you to the whole of the Okanagan who came out en force with words of welcome and encouragement.