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Pretzel Production

Pretzels were traditionally soft with a poor shelf life. However in modern times the final product has evolved into a long life product with a very low moisture level of around 2 to 3%. This provides a crisp, crunchy product.

The production steps now are:-
Mixing - formation - proofing - cooking - baking - drying and packaging.

Dough recipe (kg):
Bread flour 1.00
Compressed yeast 0.0025
Shortening 0.01
Malt 0.0100
Ammonium bicarb 0.0004
Water (approx) 0.40 - 0.45

NOTES

The yeast should be dissolved in the water which should be tempered to provide a dough temperature of 28 deg C.

The dough will be very stiff or tight and a robust mixer is required to thoroughly disperse the ingredients and mix the dough. A light or even heavy domestic mixer may be damaged by these stiff doughs. When using a 2 or 3 speed mixer it would be best to extend mixing on the lowest speed rather than risk damage on higher speeds.

After mixing let the dough ferment for 30 minutes and then form the pretzels and place on wires.

With as little as 5 minutes proof the pretzels are placed in a bath of sodium hydroxide (1.5% and ph of 13) heated to 90 deg C. They are immersed for about 12 seconds then sprinkled with a coarse salt prior to baking at 210 deg C for up to 8 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cool the oven down to 100 deg C and replace pretzels in oven for up to 90 minutes after which the pretzels are ready for packaging.

The object of this last bake is to reduce the moisture content to about 3% without further coloring the product.

Pretzels should be packaged in a sealed cellophane bag where their shelf life should be about six months.

N.B. The sodium hydroxide solution can be made by dissolving 12.5g of the powder or flakes into every 1 litre of water. Consolidated Chemicals (08) 341 1436 would have sodium hydroxide. This must be handled with care as it is extremely caustic and will burn.