Brewer's Pretzels

UPDATE: Now with pics!

Please excuse the picture quality. The blue shift on the camera was all the way up for some reason and I didn't recognize it. Since I won't be making another batch of pretzels at least until I make another batch of beer, I figured these were better than nothing.

The tools and some ingredients:


For those of us not adept at the flip & twist method (like myself), twist the pretzels on the countertop like so:


Boil 'till they float...


... then bake at 425*F for about 10 minutes



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Original Post:

I'm sure someone has mentioned this on the site before but I'm new so =P

I'm going to be bottling a batch of beer tonight and thought that even though I can always just buy another packet, it's a shame to throw out the used yeast. I figured I'd try washing/canning/refrigerating it and in the meantime, maybe there are some neat things I can do to it.

Pizza comes to mind first but that's a little more involved and perhaps more than I want to tackle the first time out so I'm thinking pretzels. That's how the food was invented anyhow, as a way to leaven flour/water in a simple oven with brewer's yeast (AFAIK, at least).

So I'm thinking the following:

1 tbsp sugar (or honey)
1 tbsp salt
2 cups warm water
all-purpose flour
2-3 tbsp yeast-laden residue from beer

For pizza crust, you'd add a little olive oil just to promote browning. Mix all ingredients except flour together until dissolved. Add flour until consistency reaches a dough, kneading by hand. After dough is formed, roll into ball, pulling the outside layer very tight and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.

Roll into long strips, cut to length, form pretzels, brush with water or olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and bake at 400*F for about 10-15 minutes.

I'm hoping to walk away with some easy-to-make beer and honey flavored pretzels.

Any advice?

It sounds like a great idea. I'd like to know how it turns out.

There's a thread/recipe for sourdough pretzels here, if your interested.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=46483&highlight=pretzels If anything it shows how to twist those darn things. I've made 3 batches of pretzels in my life, and none of them look like they're supposed to.

But I'd love to do bread and pretzels with leftover beer yeast.

fyi - if you add a small amount (around a teaspoon) of dme to your dough it makes for a finer crumb.

Those pretzels are making me thirsty!

PeteOz77 said:

Those pretzels are making me thirsty!

Click to expand...

lololol

thats a really good idea....i'd really like to hear about your recipe and how they came out....also any pictures if you can take any.

Do it and post some pictures.

Alas, the camera was out of batteries and I didn't feel like messing with it.

I'm sure you guys know what everything looks like, though.


Here's my procedure:

* Take a glass measuring cup (2-3 cup capacity) and scrape the bottom of your primary with it to pick up some yeast cake. It'll grab about half a cup depending on how thick your cake is.
* Dump any liquid residue from the beer into that cup. We can't have anything wasted, here!
* Fill to the 2-cup mark with lukewarm water, something in the 70-90*F range. Straight out of the faucet is fine - filtered if your water's gross.
* Pour all that into a nice large glass mixing bowl and get our your whisk. Whisk in a pinch of kosher salt and about a tbsp of honey. I never measure this stuff, just give the bear a squeeze.

NOTE: Your dough will rise based on how much sugar you put in. If you like a light, fluffy pretzel, put in more sugar. If you like them denser, hold back a bit. You never need more than 2tbsp of sugar no matter how much dough you're making unless it's a real industrial-sized batch. For any quantity that will fill a normal refrigerator, 2tbsp is PLENTY. If you add that much, make sure you leave a lot of room in the bowl. :cross:

* Once everything is dissolved, start adding your flour. I added it 1/2 cup at a time up to about 3 cups. Note that measuring flour by volume is imprecise but for pretzels, since we're making the dough to feel, that's not an issue. Sift if you must but you don't need to. It may also help for you to switch from the whisk to a rubber spatula until all the water is soaked up.
* When you've got a loose, sticky dough, get plenty of flour on your hands and make sure there's something to hold your bowl in place (a rubber pot holder works fine). Put another half cup of flour on top of the dough and knead it in with your hands.
* When kneading, I used a down in the middle, up on each side, turn the bowl 90 degrees. Down in the middle, fold each side over, spin the bowl. Keep flour on your hands and add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup on top of the dough whenever it gets soaked in.

You're looking for silly putty. That's the best way I can describe it. It should stick loosely to the bowl and your hands but still come away if pulled. If it's like glue and sticks to everything in huge globs, you need to add more flour. Once you hit silly putty consistency, keep kneading for about 5-10 minutes to make sure everything is even.

* Cover the bowl with a towel and set in a warm place to rise. Expect about 25% growth. That'll take about an hour so grab a beer or two and by the time you're done, so will the dough.
* Break into pieces if needed and wrap in plastic wrap. Just get it as tight as you can, it'll be like trying to swaddle a boneless baby with seaweed. Not that I've ever done that...
* Refrigerate that dough overnight.


I'll probably use the tried and true "boil & bake" method with a generous dose of kosher salt.


It's really not as time-consuming as you might think. You only need to dirty one bowl, a measuring cup and a stirring implement or two, you don't really need to measure anything and aside from getting your hands a little messy, it's a piece of cake... er, dough... er, whatever.

For time and difficulty, I'd rank it somewhere between microwave popcorn and Kraft mac & cheese. You gotta figure, what you have in the bottom of your fermenter is half the work already so why not finish the job? Plus, you don't have to waste that half a glass of beer that's still left after you siphon so that's a win in my book.

I'll pick up some batteries today and get pics of the final product.

Interesting... when you have time (and batteries) can you post pictures?

I like the innovative use of yeast.

I wonder what hoppy pretzels taste like.

i'm putting my money on "Awesome"

I think they're awesome!

Sorry for the picture delay. I had to get batteries, then I had to try and find the card reader and even when it was all done, the pics were screwed up.


As for the pretzels, 2 cups of water plus the needed flour will make about 18-24 3-4 ounce pretzels depending on how fat you like to roll 'em.

You can play around with the texture a bit. Rolling thinner and baking longer gives you a crunchier pretzel. Going thick with a short baking time gives you a softer pretzel. I'd say 10 minutes at 400*F is probably the softest I'd go and 15 minutes at 425 is about the crunchiest I'd like. But you know, some people out there actually like burnt pretzels. I've never figured that out but there you have it.

This turned out to be a great use of the leftover yeast and I'd say to do everything took about 2 hours after racking the fermenter. Maybe 25-30 minutes to make the dough and another hour to bake. Honestly, twisting the pretzels took the most time so if you could settle for "bites" or something (just make a snake and cut/rip into into chunks) it would take even less time.

I highly recommend trying it out the next time you're thinking about just dumping your yeast down the drain.




Pics that didn't fit in the first post:

Set them somewhere to cool: (stack 'em to the heavens!)


And enjoy!

Thanks for the recipe. Here's mine...just in time for Superbowl.

I planning to do these today with some of an amber ale yeastcake...Yehaw...

Except I seem to have fermented all the honey in my house into mead
My bad!

How important is the honey to the overall flavor? Can I cheat and add a splash of some of the partially fermented mead to it instead?

I am going to give this a shot after I rack my brown ale.

I think I'll split the batch, and add jalapenos to half, like at Aunt Annie's in the mall.

So I am tempted to substitute a portion of that flour with spent grains from a Partial Mash run. I will start rinsing and refrigerating them. I found a dog treat recipe but I love the idea of using yeast and grain from a brew for food!

You can very simple software to correct the photo.

Thanks for bumping this thread Orfy!

schwoa im gonna try this!

I tried these the other day and got WAY to much yeast cake in there. Killed the flavor and they most deffinitly didn't rise and look as golden brown as yours.

I WILL master this!

Been a pretty die-hard baker for a while (since before I became a brewer), and I've been using some washed hefe yeast to make pretzels and pizza for a while. You've gotta be sure to use washed yeast, not just yeast cake, in order to be precise with the yeast amounts. I also use washed yeast to make awesome artisanal loaves. Big, brown and fantastic! Hooray for brewing yeast in breads!

I made these last week and they turned out really good. They didn't come out nice and brown either. Should i add a little olive oil next time?

Chello said:

I made these last week and they turned out really good. They didn't come out nice and brown either. Should i add a little olive oil next time?

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Has anyone tried a dip into, or a brush with, a baking soda bath to increase browning? I think that is how Alton Brown did it on his show.

Ohhhh, I'll have to try this now. I might throw in some spent grains as well after doing a loaf of spent-grain hearth bread using some blowoff WLP023 yeast, I'm thinking I'll use the cake from my Duvel clone. I wonder how WLP570 tastes in bread....

I make the Alton Brown recipe alot... I think they are great! Make the dough, shape, then boil in a boiling baking soda/water bath. Coat with Egg wash and sprinkle salt.

bake, then eat hot right out of the oven. My kids never like hot pretzels at parades, games, until I made these... Now I can barely keep up with demand. Between the baking soda and egg wash, they get a perfect golden brown...

I boil in baking soda water for 1 minute and that does plenty for the browning. I pretty much followed Alton from a cooking perspective.

Bobby, those are beautiful and look like mine from a browning perspective...

My only problem is when I shape them, they tend to spring back (gluten in the dough).

How do you get yours to stay so large, and not bunch back together....


I have the same problems when I make pizza as well... I mix well, can windowpane, but stretching the dough out, it always wants to spring back.

I'm not a baking expert by any means and I do have the same trouble you mentioned in some batches. I've backed off on my percentage of bread flour to reduce the effect. I think my latest mix was 1/4 cup rye, then 50/50 bread flour and whole wheat all purpose. I run that on the dough hook 15 minutes, cover and rest in the fridge overnight. Remove to room temp for 2 hours, then form. Due to the spring back, you need to make the snake about twice the length you think you need, then put on a baking pan and cover with plastic for another hour.

Not too bad for a first attempt, eh?

Looks fantastic to me. No doubt these are a pain in the butt for what they are, but I can't stop making/eating them. I make 3 batches at a time, half bake them, then freeze. That way I can pop one in the toaster oven for 5 minutes anytime I want one.

flyangler18 said:

Not too bad for a first attempt, eh?

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You should put that on your lawn and when someone is looking pick it up, smell it, and then take a bite.

I made these last night, and while they aren't much to look at they taste like pretzels! Woot. I'm pretty sure I didn't add in enough flour, or maybe didn't knead enough, because it was stickier than it should have been. I eventually gave up on actually making pretzels and just pulled off chunks for bite sized pieces. Finally, my wife liked something beer-related I made! (no beer, no beer pancakes, no ginger ale recipe I found here...)

I dunno if it's just me but I never got "Brezeln", they just don't do it for me, I think it's the cloying boiled dought that I don't like. The Germans are mad into the Bier brezeln alright, just not so much up North.