Fresh Milled Flour Sourdough Discard Soft Pretzels
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If there was one thing I really wanted to figure out with fresh milled flour aside from sandwich bread, it would be soft pretzels. Sourdough discard pretzels to be exact since I always have discard. We really enjoy them here! These pretzels whip up quickly and most of the time to make them is waiting on the dough to rise. These pretzels have a delicious flavor with the richness of the fresh milled flour along with the sourdough discard and brown sugar, you’ve got some good flavor in there. Feel free to twist these into some big pretzels or chop up into soft sourdough pretzel bites for a delish appetizer. They’re also the perfect snack with your favorite dip! Be sure and check out my Pretzel Dogs recipe using bratwursts… you gotta try it!
Lye or Baking Soda?
Traditional pretzels are made utilizing sodium hydroxide, or food grade lye, instead of sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, as I do here in this recipe. Lye gives the pretzels the most traditional pretzel-y flavor, color, and the chewy crust texture. As a soap maker, I have plenty of lye on hand but it isn’t food grade and I really never feel up to dealing with lye when I’m cooking, but someday I will try it with pretzels as I hear they’re not even comparable and out of this world good. For the sake of my recipes, I use baking soda to boil the pretzels in because it’s more readily available and most of us have it on hand, not lye.
To get science-y though, both lye and baking soda are alkaline substances. This means they are basic on the pH scale, ringing in above 7. Lye is incredibly caustic at a 13 on the pH scale while sodium bicarbonate is less so at around 8. So, with the differences in alkalinity, it will obviously work a bit differently when making the pretzels. Lye is going to give the pretzels a wonderful deep brown color and shiny sheen to the outside. Baking soda? Notsomuch. Due to the greater alkalinity of the lye solution, it fast tracks the Maillard reaction giving you gorgeous, shiny brown food quickly.
When using lye, you create a lye solution and dilute it down to about a 3% solution, weighing the lye into the water much like you do soap making. When working with lye, even in the kitchen, lye safety is a must and you should be wearing eye and skin protection as it can be caustic and cause severe burns. Since you’re working with such a diluted amount with pretzels, the danger decreases, but it’s still there. Better safe than sorry! Then you dip the pretzel dough in it in the exact same manner as we’ll do with baking soda later on. Once the lye dipped pretzels have baked they are perfectly safe to eat!
Once you are done with the lye solution, it can be dumped directly down the sink drain followed by water or neutralized with vinegar first if you prefer. Whenever working with lye, with either pretzels or soap, have vinegar available and ready to go as a safety precaution.
For the sake of this recipe, I use baking soda because I don’t have food grade lye at my fingertips and I’ve found that it works just fine for me with little kids around. I’m also not a traditional Bavarian pretzel maker using a 200 year old family recipe, so I guess I don’t know what I’m missing?! Just a bit safer and easier in my opinion. I get nice brown pretzels and shiny exteriors with an egg wash after the baking soda bath and before baking. The egg wash also helps the flaky salt or topping to adhere before baking.
​Equipment You Will Need:
- Stand Mixer
- Grain Mill
- Large Mixing Bowl
- Dutch Oven
- Baking Sheet
- Parchment Paper
Ingredients:
- 3 1/3 cup fresh ground hard white wheat (grind 2 1/4 cups wheat berries)
- 1 cup + 2 Tbs warm water
- 1 Tbs brown sugar
- 1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
- 3/4 cup sourdough discard or active starter
- 2 tsp salt
- 4 Tbs lard, melted
- 1 egg
- 2 quarts water
- 1/2 cup baking soda
Let’s get to pretzel making!
Step 1: Mill the Wheat Berries
​Measure out about 2 1/4 cup of hard white wheat berries and run them through your grain mill. I use my WonderMill on the “bread” setting. I will usually mill extra wheat berries in case I need a bit extra flour for the pretzel dough and feed the remainder to my sourdough starter when I’m done. Two birds, one stone.
Step 2: Bloom the Yeast
To the bowl of a stand mixer, add warm water, brown sugar, and active dry yeast. Stir to dissolve and allow to sit for about 5 minutes to get nice and foamy. This shows that your yeast is awake and active and ready to burp your dough into fluffiness! LOL
Step 3: Add Dry Ingredients
To the yeast mixture, add the sourdough discard, 3 cups of fresh milled flour, salt, and melted lard. Mix with a dough hook attachment on low speed until combined and forms a shaggy dough. If a shaggy dough doesn’t form, add a little flour in at a time until it does. You want it to be a sticky mass that is just starting to want to become a ball.
Step 4: Dough Rest
Cover with a tea towel and allow the dough to rest 20 minutes. This allows the fresh milled grains to rehydrate properly before adding any more flour and accidentally making a very dry dense dough.
Step 5: Knead the Dough
After the rest time, turn the stand mixer on with the dough hook and allow to knead for 5 minutes to form a smooth dough ball. If needed, add flour in small amounts just until a ball forms. It should be tacky but not stick to your hands.
Step 6: Rise
Turn the dough into a mixing bowl oiled with olive oil, cover, and let rise about 1 1/2 hours in a warm place or until the ball has doubled.
Step 7: Portion
After the dough has risen, punch down and turn out onto a work surface. Portion into 8 equal pieces using a bench scraper.
Roll out into a 2 feet long rope by pressing dough out flat into rectangular pieces, then rolling it up away from you, then rolling until it reaches the length. Twist into pretzel shapes or cut into bites and place them on a prepared baking sheet lined with parchment.
Step 8: Baking Soda Bath
​Preheat oven to 450F while you work.
Bring 2 quarts of water + 1/2 cup baking soda to a boil in a dutch oven or large pot.
Working one pretzel at a time, place them into the boiling water for 30 seconds, flipping and boiling another 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain, and place back onto parchment paper.
IF your pretzels are sinking and not floating during this step, stop, cover, and allow the pretzels to rise for 30 minutes before continuing as your dough was not risen enough the first step. They’ll be crazy dense otherwise. Ask me how I know.
Step 9: Bake
Using a pastry brush, brush pretzels with an egg wash and sprinkle flaky salt and bake about 10-15 minutes or til browned and appearing done. If you cut into bites, bake for less time depending on size, around 5-10 minutes.
Step 10: Serve
Remove pretzels from oven and serve immediately with homemade honey mustard or beer cheese dip! Enjoy!
Step 11: Store
Store leftovers at room temperature for 2-3 days in an airtight container. Reheat in a low oven, microwave, or air fryer and enjoy! Homemade pretzels maintain their chewy texture when reheated. You can also freeze leftovers to enjoy at a later time for about 6 months vacuum sealed.
Notes:
Feel free to play with the toppings and flavors a little with these. Cinnamon sugar and everything bagel seasoning sprinkled over top before baking are super good!
This recipe and also be formed into 8 pretzel buns (do a second rise after forming) or used to make pretzel dogs.
Equipment
- stand mixer
- Dutch Oven
- parchment paper
Ingredients
- 3 1/3 cup fresh ground hard white wheat grind 2 1/4 cups wheat berries
- 1 cup + 2 Tbs warm water
- 1 Tbs brown sugar
- 1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
- 3/4 cup sourdough discard
- 2 tsp salt
- 4 Tbs butter or lard melted
- 8 cups water
- 1/2 cup baking soda
Instructions
- Start by milling the wheat berries and set aside. Mill about 2 1/4 cup of hard white wheat berries
- To the bowl of your standmixer, add warm water, brown sugar, and yeast, stirring to dissolve. Allow to sit and become foamy; approximately 3-5 minutes.
- To the yeast mixture, add 3 cups of fresh milled flour, sourdough discard, salt, and melted butter. Using the dough hook, mix until a shaggy ball forms. Add a bit more fresh ground flour if needed.
- Cover and allow dough to rest for 20 minutes.
- After rest period, knead dough with standmixer for about 5 minutes until a smooth ball forms. If dough remains sticky, add a little more fresh milled flour until it comes together.
- Turn dough into an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm area for 1-1.5 hours, til doubled.
- Punch dough down and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out into 2 feet long ropes by pressing dough out flat then rolling it up away from you, then rolling until it reaches the length. Twist into pretzel shapes and place them on a sheet pan lined with parchment.
- Preheat oven to 450F and bring 2 quarts of water + 1/2 cup baking soda to a boil. Working one pretzel at a time, place them into the boiling water for 30 seconds, flipping and boiling another 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain, and place back onto parchment paper. IF your pretzels are sinking and not floating during this step, stop and allow the pretzels to rise for 30 minutes before continuing as your dough was not risen enough the first step.
- Brush pretzels with an egg wash and sprinkle salt or cinnamon sugar over top and bake about 15 minutes or til browned and appearing done.
- Remove from oven to a cooling rack and enjoy with homemade honey mustard or cheese sauce!
