The recipes I found online seem like the same ingredients as any other type of roll. Why do pretzel rolls have that very distinctive pretzel taste? Where exactly does that come from?
when I bake pretzels at home it is the baking soda bath the pretzels get after they rise that give them their distinctive taste.
Pretzels get a bath in a solution which is strongly basic (the opposite of acidic). That causes chemical changes in the dough which gives it the distinctive taste. You’re not tasting the solution itself. You’re tasting the new chemicals created by the basic solution reacting with dough.
Lye is typically used commercially, but you can’t easily get it for home use, so most people use baking soda if they do it at home. Some people will say you can use Draino since it’s lye, but that’s dangerous because it’s not food grade and you don’t really know what’s in it.
Yep, baking soda. I sometimes make pretzel bagels by adding some baking soda to the boiling water bath.
Thanks! Interesting.
May I recommend you try making your own hot pretzels:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/hot-buttered-soft-pretzels-and-pretzel-bites-recipe
You can do the same trick with the dough wrapped around a hot dog instead of twisted into a pretzel.
Would you happen to know what chemicals those are?
That sounds pretty tasty.
Sure. NAOH(aq) or NaHCO3(aq) catalyzes reactions between the amino acids (RNH3+) and cabonyl groups of the sugars (varies) in the pretzel dough to produce a Malliard reaction. This reaction produces a whole host of new flavor compounds plus the characteristic browning of pretzels.
Ordering it on Amazon doesn’t qualify as “easily” yet? It’s also available off the shelf in large Asian supermarkets, e.g. 99 Ranch.
Cool, thanks!
not cool. burnt.
and tasty. it occurs in lots of heated foods.
This is why I love this message board so much. I knew the answer was “baking soda, or sometimes lye” when I saw the thread title, but this was a great addition, and I thank you.
Indirectly I learned something else, too: I always thought the Malliard reaction was only created by heat. I hadn’t connects the brown color of pretzels to that, and didn’t know it could be triggered by anything other than hot temps.
You can still get it, but it’s not as easy as it once was. A long time ago lye something normally carried in regular stores. It is dangerous to use. If the pretzels are not properly rinsed, the remaining lye can burn your mouth. So if anyone is thinking of trying it with lye on their own, make sure you read up on how to do it safely.
Is potassium carbonate known as “lye”? Usually, it’s sodium hydroxide (like the old Red Devil lye) or potassium hydroxide. Potassium carbonate is just potash, isn’t it (which then can be used to make lye)?
Anyhow, lye is somewhat difficult to find in stores these days cause the most popular brand, Red Devil, went under. It’s also apparently used in meth manufacturing. The website of the brand in the Amazon link claims it’s illegal now to buy lye at the retail level–that you must buy it from manufacturers. This goes against what I’ve read on soapmaking boards that lye is available at Lowes under the brand Roebics Crystal Drain Opener. Note that this is not food-grade lye, though.
(I was just reading up on this about two weeks ago, wondering if my local Target still had lye available so I could show someone the ol’ sodium hydroxide + water + aluminum foil chemical reaction that liberates hydrogen gas or, more fun, can blow up plastic soda bottles. I had no idea it was so hard to come by these days.)
That said, if you have a Mexican grocer nearby, you might be able to find something in the spice section called “cal” or “cal mexicana,” which is calcium hydroxide (it’s used to make hominy/nixtamalized corn.) That should work well as a substitute for food grade lye. You can also try looking for something called “pickling lime,” which is the same thing. I see it on Walmart and True Value’s website, but I’ve never actually seen it at a store myself.
Would something similar happen if the dough was put in an acidic solution? Or does this only happen in a basic solution?
I can’t think of any kind of baking that requires an acid bath. But, acids are definitely used to change the chemistry of dough to various effect.
Citric/ascorbic acids can be added to dough to help it rise more and faster, and to have a finer crumb. Acids also help lower the PH of dough, which is useful because flour dough contain amylase enzymes that degrade the dough and reduce it’s shelf life. You can stop this enzymatic activity of you lower the PH of the dough to below 4.5, and adding acid does this. This is how rye breads are made. Rye flour is very low gluten, so it is sometimes mixed with high-gluten flour in order to help trap gas bubbles from the leavening process. But if you want 100% rye bread, you can add yeasts and acids to lower the PH and change the starches to catch those gases. Or you can add a little sourdough, which has lactic acid and acetic acid and will produce the same effect.
The acid in sourdough is of course what gives it’s distinctive taste and texture.
You can also use both acids and bases in flour to act as a leavener. The acid and bases (usually baking soda and tartaric acid) neutralize each other when water is added and release carbon dioxide gas. These gas bubbles are trapped in the flour and causes it to rise. Leavening this way doesn’t last very long so usually the bread is cooked quickly before the carbon dioxide escapes the dough altogether. This is how you make soda bread, Irish bread, and cakes.
There is a lot of complicated chemistry involved with baking! 
This is why measuring the amount of ingredients is so important, compared to other kinds of cooking. Too much or too little of an ingredient(s), and the required chemical reactions won’t happen or won’t happen in the needed amounts.
If you find some food grade lye you can also make fish soap, or lutefisk as it’s known in some parts.
Soaking bread in lye seems like something no one would try deliberately. Do you think pretzels were an accident, discovered after bread fell in wood ash?
Also, how do you get the lye off the pretzels afterwards?
As far as I know there is no residual lye. The dough is risen in a hot weak lye solution, and what’s left after taking it from the bath reacts with the dough. Lye was used as a preservative, and that may have been the origin of it’s usage.
Bagels are risen in a hot bath also, traditionally not using lye or any other base, but I wouldn’t be surprised if commercial bagels were bathed in some solution to improve the crust. That is if they are water risen at all, not many are these days.