Made some authentic thick pretzels today and while researching recipes learned about the dipping of the pretzels in a basic solution prior to baking them to obtain the brown chewy crust. The safer method mentioned for people is to use a boiling solution of baking soda but the traditional German method that is touted on the internet is to use lye. I decided to go the lye route but figured if a more basic solution was the secret to browner chewier pretzels then maybe even the recipes online were apprehensive to list the full strength lye solution also. Here's where my test begins.

I used this recipe from King Arthur baking company since it was referenced in their discussion on using lye for that authentic German flavor.

The lye recipes discuss making a caustic bath of 3-4% lye to water so per the recipe I made an original bath of 4% (25g lye:600g water) for half of the pretzels. They then direct you to dunk them in the bath for ~10-20 seconds per side so I dunked the first half at ~20 seconds per side removed and baked per the recipe.

While those were baking I increased the strength of the solution by adding an additional 10g (35g lye: 600g water) to get to a 5.5% lye solution. I then bathed 2 of the remaining pretzels still at the 20 seconds per side in this increased bath. But for the last two I thought let's up it even more so I dunked them in the bath for 1 minute on each side.

Results

Sight

All pretzels came out of the oven looking deliciously brown and smelled amazing. However even before tasting it was very apparent that the 5.5% pretzels were most definitely more brown than the 4% pretzels. There was a slight color difference on the ones with the longer dunk to the shorter dunk, but they were much closer in color to each other.

Taste

The 4% pretzels were softer in a way that was more like a bread with a taste of that pretzel zing. Tasty but softer than I think of a pretzel as.

Both of the 5.5% pretzels had a bigger pretzel zing in a way that was much preferred. The ones that were dipped for longer the most noticeable difference was that the crust appeared thicker and was even more chewy than their alternatives. For me this was much better and closer to what I want in a German pretzel but I could see some people wanting it a little less chewy.

My favorite of all of them are the 5.5% solution for 1 minute by far. Just so chewy and browned and tasting of the pretzel zing. For next time I think I'll make most of them at this concentration but make a couple at even higher concentration or see if raising the temperature of the bath makes a difference to see where it starts to become too much. :)

Pictures here, you can see the visible differences in the cross sections very well

For anyone wanting to make pretzels in the future I hope this helps! As always use safety precautions as this stuff can be quite dangerous if you're not taking proper precautions. (Eye protection, gloves, and vinegar solution in a spray bottle on standby for any emergencies)