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Lye?


pennbrew

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Chinese stores have both in a bottle and as a powder.

dcarch

Seen this in my local Asian megamarts. And I'm wondering if this is good enough for pretzels -- what sort of dilution? The bottle warns that anyone dumb enough to drink the product will die. So I'm sure it's very high on the PH scale.

Anyone used this to success making pretzels?

Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today. -- Edgar Allan Poe

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Are you making hard pretzels or soft pretzels? I've only ever made soft pretzels and those are par-boiled in a baking soda bath before bakng. I never heard of using lye. Is there a food-grade lye?

Lye is the ingredient that is traditionally used for soft pretzel making. I'm not sure about hard, but think it is the same. According to the article I linked earlier, baking soda gets a similar effect to lye, but is not basic enough to get the right flavor profile and texture. In contrast, baked soda is.

Andrew Vaserfirer aka avaserfi

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Are you making hard pretzels or soft pretzels? I've only ever made soft pretzels and those are par-boiled in a baking soda bath before bakng. I never heard of using lye. Is there a food-grade lye?

I want to make the traditional "Laugenbrez'n" (literally "lye pretzels") found in Bavarian beerhalls. They are somewhere between what Americans think of as soft and hard pretzels, although certainly closer to soft.

I've ordered it from Amazon (see link above), but it hasn't arrived yet.

I've also heard that there is a specific type of flour used in Germany. The Hofbrauhaus in Pittsburgh (and presumably the ones in Las Vegas and Cincinnati) imports the flour. Anyone know the details of such flour?

Thanks!

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I have heard folks say that there's really no difference between so-called "food grade" lye and Red Devil. That said, I'd probably personally be hesitant to cook with something from the hardware store.

The alkaline solutions sold at the Chinese market may or may not be lye. Jianshui / kanshui should be potassium and/or sodium carbonate; penghui (mugwort potash, which contains potassium carbonate) is also used sometimes for noodle making. I believe lye should be sodium / potatssium hydroxide.

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