Bavarian Pretzels

[OliverB]

I have a need for Bavarian style Pretzels (or Brezn as we call them) but I'm a bit confused on the chemistry side. You have to bathe them in a "Lauge" made of "Natron" according to my German cook book. Natron translates to sodium which leads to baking soda in some recipes I found online. And others use lye (some from the hardware store....). My chemistry days are in the ancient past, can somebody enlighten me if this is all the same or if it's possible to use one or the other with the same results? Otherwise I'll rather wait until i can get some Natron sent to me from Germany. Gong the hardware store way seems a bit risky....

Thanks!

Oliver

[alanamoana]

it is lye (can be ordered from a chemist?). baking soda does not give the same results. be careful, use gloves!

[OliverB]

thanks! I know you have to be careful with that stuff (it's in drain cleaners after all....). I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere. If anybody reading this knows of a supplier please let me know!

thanks

{edit} I found one source and for all I can tell their lye will work just fine:

http://www.certified-lye.com/

they sell it for soap making but certify that it's pure lye. As I wanted to try my hands at soap making (to show my boy and maybe as fun stocking stuffers) I got two 20 oz containers that should last me a while. Shipping is more expensive than the lye, LOL.

I shall post a picture of my Brezen, I hope to get to them this weekend!!

Oliver

PS: word of caution, this stuff is to be handled with extreme care! They have all the safety info on their site, use gloves, glasses, old clothing and an apron and probably at least a dust mask too. And do NOT use it with aluminum! I'll make my pretzel bath in a glass roasting dish.

Can't wait for some real Pretzels, no comparison to the poor excuse they try to sell you here in the US!

Edited March 3, 2009 by OliverB (log)

[HungryC]

International Scientific Supply has what you need. Food grade lye

[cmflick]

As another word of precaution, always add lye to water, never water to lye. When adding water to lye you can get a volcano like effect with nasty consequences. Also always make up the lye solution in a well ventilated place. There are nasty fumes and the solution may heat up a lot. When I'm making soap the lye solution goes up to about 170F when I mix it. I would also cover whatever surface that you are working on with something disposable. Any stray crystals of lye can cause nasty burns if you contact them later.

And one other thing, if you can get microbeads or pellets rather than crystalline lye, get it. Crystalline lye can have a lot of static and be hard to control when measuring.

I buy lye for soap making from Summer Bee Meadow, but I have no idea if their lye is suitable for food uses.

[OliverB]

thanks for all the input!

I got mine on the way, certified-lye seems to have the best price, $4.39 per lb or less if you buy more. 99.9 percent pure and food grade according to this:

"Certified Lye™ sells an extremely high-quality lye, which is manufactured in the USA and is intended primarily for use in making soap. Our high-quality lye meets the FCC and USDA standards for food uses, such as curing olives, hominy, century eggs, lutefisk and poaching German pretzels. Lower grades of lye are commonly used as drain openers and as oven cleaners."

I shall report the outcome with hopefully gorgeous photos of Brezeln made in California! :-)

Oliver

[alanamoana]

If you're in Northern California, when can I come over for bretzn?!

Have fun, I have a friend in NY who worked on this project as well. We staged at a little bakery in the Black Forest of Germany (my friend's father's hometown) where we made these gems. I love them with butter and some good German ham.

edited to add: thank you cmflick for all the good safety advice on using lye. i don't think i would have thought about half the things you mentioned.

Edited March 4, 2009 by alanamoana (log)

[OliverB]

If they turn out the way I hope, just come on over, we're close to the 680/24 interchange! They are also exceptionally good with Weisswurst (the white Bavarian sausage, probably the first thing I'll make once I have my grinder and stuffer!) or a nice crunchy fatty pork roast. Or just a nice cold beer, some butter and some cheeses.

My kids love Brezeln and I can get them at Dittmer's Wursthaus in Mountain View or thereabouts (great German butcher!) but that's an hour's drive and while we come by there frequently for family, that's usually on Sundays when they are closed. Of course.

[OliverB]

well, I got my lye, I'm ready to go, but my recipe asks for 40g of yeast, the fresh kind. This is for 600g of flour.

Of course, I don't have fresh yeast, and what I find via google etc is not very conclusive, so, how much dry yeast would I use here? (edit:) what I find online and on my package is that one of my traditional active dry yeast is the same as one 0.6oz cake fresh. So 40g would be 1.41oz of dry, or a bit more than two packages? Seems a lot. I intend to half the recipe, but still.(:edit)

Also, would I use bread flour or all purpose?

thanks for any help!

Edited March 11, 2009 by OliverB (log)

[tmriga]

Have you inquired at an independent bakery, to see if they would sell you some fresh yeast? The nearby independent bakery where I live will sell fresh yeast to me if I need it. Hey, the worst they can do is say no, right?

Theresa

[OliverB]

To my surprise even my local Safeway stocks it, I just don't have any at home and had no chance to go to the store. I used a recipe I found online on an Oktoberfest site. It has 1/3 cup brown sugar in the dough (or what they say 80g, but that seemed way too much). I must say, they turned out quite wonderful for a first ever attempt. Golden brown, crunchy thin crust, just the way they are supposed to be. Once I figure out the yeast thing I'll try the German recipe that has no sugar, just a bit of salt. then it could be interesting to sub the water with warm beer, add some seeds to the dough, hmmmm, how fun :-)

Oh, I wish there'd be an independent bakery in town. And a butcher. A real take the whole animal and cut it down kind of butcher. I'll probably have to open that myself one of these days....

[alanamoana]

well, I got my lye, I'm ready to go, but my recipe asks for 40g of yeast, the fresh kind. This is for 600g of flour.

Of course, I don't have fresh yeast, and what I find via google etc is not very conclusive, so, how much dry yeast would I use here? (edit:) what I find online and on my package is that one of my traditional active dry yeast is the same as one 0.6oz cake fresh. So 40g would be 1.41oz of dry, or a bit more than two packages? Seems a lot. I intend to half the recipe, but still.(:edit)

Also, would I use bread flour or all purpose?

thanks for any help!

←

i think there's a thread on yeast somewhere, but as a general rule of thumb (a little late, I know):

when substituting for fresh yeast, use about 1/3 the amount instant yeast or 1/2 the amount in active dry.

edited to add: i'm on the other side of the bay from you...but i may just come by for pretzels when you get it all together!

Edited March 13, 2009 by alanamoana (log)

[OliverB]

I figured I'll share some images of my sadly already departed Brezeln. I have to work on getting the form right but I was too excited to fiddle around with these.

First the recipe I used:

1package active dry yeast

warm water 350ml

brown sugar 1/3 cup (note, recipe says 1/3 cup or 80gr, but 80gr looked like a lot and did not fit in my 1/3 cup so I went with the smaller amount)

flour 520gr

4 quarts water

2Tsp lye (from certifiedlye.com)

I put the yeast, flour, sugar all together and then added the warm water, made the dough. Does not need to rise but probably did for 30min or so in the end. I did not see a difference between the first and last Brezeln, so the rise does not seem to have much effect.

I did not know if these will rise much in the oven, so I made them rather small compared to what you get in Germany (about hand size). They did not grow much, next time I'll make them larger.

You roll the dough into a long sausage, then cut off pieces and form a long about thumb thick sausage. You make a loop, cross the ends over and fold them back on the loop. Easier to see in pictures (which I did not take but can be found in many books).

You add the lye to the water (never the other way around!) and heat it up to just boiling, then reduce heat a bit to keep it just very hot. Submerge each Brezel for some 30 or so seconds until they float and turn a light yellow. They might stick to the bottom of the pot, I found it best to sink them in with a spatula and then jiggle them a bit around so they did not make contact with the bottom of the pot.

I just put them on the baking sheet with salted parchment paper after I let most of the bath run off. (I later discarded the paper, it got all wobbly and brown after the 2nd batch. You must make sure though, that your sheet is non-reactive and especially not made of aluminum as lye will dissolve it (and create helium...)) Sprinkle with some coarse salt (the larger the grains the better) and if you like with some seeds like anise or cumin. I baked them for about 10 min at 475 until they had a nice brown crust.

Here they are in all their glory:

And here you can see the crust and crumb:

They smelled and tasted absolutely authentic and I will make them again soon, the kids love them :-)

You can store these in a bag but they will turn a bit gummy, put them back in the oven the next day to get them nice and crunchy again. If you have left overs....

I sometimes spray them with some water and sprinkle some more salt on too, since most of the salt on there tends to dissolve over night.

Next recipe will be an adaption from a German book, once I can figure out if the 40gr of yeast are correct, as it seems like a lot for 600gr of flour?

Edit: just to add, making the lye bath is little trouble, but you have to be careful. I wold recommend to use gloves and maybe even goggles. I wear glasses anyway and I passed on the gloves as I used a long slotted spatula and slotted spoon, but if you get this stuff on your skin it will burn you. I'm actually not sure if the solution would be strong enough to do so, but the pure lye definitely has to be handled with care. The recipe I used actually does not use lye, but 2Tsp of baking soda per each cup of water used (and you need enough to really have the Brezel float around). I went for the real thing and don't really see it as much of a hassle at all, but the baking soda is an option if you rather don't have hot corrosive liquids around. But as long as you keep Aluminum far away and handle things somewhat careful you should be fine. certifiedlye.com has lots of info on their site. And with lye you can make some nice soap too if you want :-)

Edited March 14, 2009 by OliverB (log)

[lamington]

Next recipe will be an adaption from a German book, once I can figure out if the 40gr of yeast are correct, as it seems like a lot for 600gr of flour?

My experiences correspond with yours OliverB. I worked on developing a recipe a few years back (originally intended for publication). The amount of yeast to flour seems about right... I use 20gm dried yeast to 500gm flour, so 40gm fresh yeast would be good.

[OliverB]

interesting! Since it's not gonna make be go bankrupt I think I'll just try the recipe with fresh yeast which I can get here, if it works I'll try again with dry in according amounts. Maybe they'll rise more?

I'll add to this post once I get to some more experimenting :-)