Homemade pretzels

Does anybody have any outstanding homemade pretzel recipes and a good beer to pair it with? Please share!

treacheroustexan said:

Does anybody have any outstanding homemade pretzel recipes and a good beer to pair it with? Please share!

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You can use any simple recipe online. The absolute key is using the lye. Don't use baking soda.

And don't worry it isn't as dangerous as it's made out to be.

Alton Brown's recipe is pretty good: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe.html

Lye is the way to go, but honestly I just use baking soda usually and it works pretty well.

An alternative is to use make some sodium carbonate and use that. It's somewhere in between baking soda and lye in strength. Bake baking soda at 300 F for an hour.

i'll second alton brown's recipe.. take some practice to make them look good, but they'll still taste good

i wouldn't mind a good homemade beer mustard.. that would be nice if anybody has any recipes for that as well!

Another vote for Alton Brown's recipe. It's simple and produces a really great product. I like it with this beer cheese recipe:

1 bottle beer ( I usually use Yuengling Lager or similar)
3 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoon flour
8 oz cream cheese, diced and softened
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper

Throw all that in a crockpot and let it melt.

Protip: do NOT use an ALUMINUM sheet pan directly, and do NOT use ALUMINUM FOIL for baking your pretzels.

If you don't have a stainless sheet pan (you probably don't!) then line your sheet pan with PARCHMENT PAPER.

Sorry for the SHOUTING, but if you use aluminum to bake your pretzels (which are coated with alkalai) then they will taste awful, like eating a chunk of metal. I speak from experience. After I lined my pans with parchment paper the rest of them tasted great. But there are still pretzel-shaped stains on my sheet pan from that first batch.

I used Brad Smith's recipe (he sent it out in the Beersmith newsletter) except I adapted it for sourdough. If you have a sourdough starter, I can't recommend sourdough pretzels enough. They are awesome. I used this advice to convert it to sourdough: http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.php?content=convert

I have also tried it both with Kosher salt and with real pretzel salt. I actually liked the kosher salt better because pretzel salt is WAY saltier than you expect it to be. If you use real pretzel salt, sprinkle it over the top rather than "dipping" the top of the pretzels into a plate of salt (which you can do with kosher)

Edit: +1 to sodium carbonate: bake some baking soda in the oven for an hour or so. Normal baking soda also works reasonably well, though.

Regarding beer pairing, I brought the pretzels to the office for our Oktoberfest event last year and also brought in my home-brewed Hefeweizenberg (sort of in between a Wit and a Bavarian Hefeweizen, but with cascade hops and a couple extra IBUs) and they went great together. Served the hefe on tap out of mini-kegs along with Kostritzer, Bitburger and Warsteiner out of mini-kegs as well. It was very successful.

chocotaco said:

After I lined my pans with parchment paper the rest of them tasted great. But there are still pretzel-shaped stains on my sheet pan from that first batch.

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I have those pretzel outlines on a baking sheet. My wife was not happy.

illinoisbrassman said:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f56/bavarian-pretzel-recipe-37723/

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This recipe is similar to the one I use. It's great

I use Alton Brown's recipe ( http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-soft-pretzels-recipe.html)

reinstone said:

And don't worry it isn't as dangerous as it's made out to be.

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That's a lye. Sorry couldn't resist.