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As an American in Germany I love the looks my friends give me when I eat my Brezeln with mustard. Less "That's wrong and disgusting!" but more "Huh, I'm surprised we don't actually do that, it seems like something we'd do." It's like when I saw a place selling "American Pizza" with a hot dog stuffed crust...like, I've never seen that before but that seems like something we'd do.

Also, forgot to say, PLEASE do more traditional German recipes like this because I'm really intrigued by German food. Especially bread!

Speaking of mustard, an episode on the different types of mustards and how to make homemade versions would be very interesting.

If you bake your baking soda in the oven (dry) for ~45 minutes (~400F), you can make sodium carbonate from sodium bicarbonate. The absence of that CO will make a powder that will increase the pH of your blanching water somewhere between NaOH and Baking Soda. You will get much closer to the mark on the exterior color. I do like that you covered the reason for doing this (starch pre-gelatinization and pH gradient of Maillard browning) Source: I'm a Food Science graduate and brew beer for a living...I was supposed to go to Oktoberfest this year &!#^O*@. Great video, Prost!

Damn gonna have to try this

If you add molasses(Sie können Molasse bei Edeka kaufen) to the baking soda water mix, it will give it that dark color and deep flavor you are looking for.

As an Englishman living in Munich, I came for the beer and stayed for the Obazda.

!! I am from a Pretzel City, Philly. We are filled with German and Dutch decedents and our pretzel recipes are very, very similar. I don't use food Lye but slow cook baking soda to increase the PH for the pre bath. Just bake the baking soda slow in the over to knock out the water. !!

Best Brezel I ever had was at a wedding. After starving us for hours an Einstein-level genius angel brought out warm Brezeln with melted Butter injected into the thick part moments before serving. I don't know if it was the hours long deprevation but those Brezeln were one of the best meals of my life.

My Breakfast routine contains a Butterbrezel (Pretzel cut in half and spread butter on it) once in a while. As I moved from my home town (Heidelberg) south of the Weißwurst-Equator to Berlin, I had a desire for a Butterbrezel. I got in a Berlin bakery (a traditional bakery not a self service bakery) I asked for a Butterbrezel. The staff looked at me as I was asking for the impossible, my request got denied got told that they don't offer Butterbrezel because it is to difficult to produce. I guess they thought a Butterbrezel is made like a Butter-Croissant. Well since then I never asked for a Butterbrezel again, in Berlin at least.

I enjoy dipping one end of my pretzel in cheese and the other in mustard.

I like your Obazda recipe it is almost like my grandma's :)

Adding beer to your dough, so you can have beer while drinking beer. Nice. On a side note: Sweet mustard with Bretzeln or Laugenstangen is just awesome!

Personal favorite: cutting the brezel in half and smearing it with Nutella. The salt on the brezel and the nutella just work

Just tried this recipe tonight and it was so tasty. I did end up using a lye solution. I couldn’t find the oven temp anywhere so I guessed and did 375°F for 15 minutes. They came out soft and pillowy! Delicious. Wouldn’t mind a bit more of a crust on them so I might play around with the oven temp and time next batch. Thanks again for a great video.

Ich (auch Berliner) hab vor kurzem gelernt, dass die Brezeln in Bayern eher gleichmäßige "Arme" (?) haben und die schwäbischen (die ich hauptsächlich in Berlin kenne) die Dicke variieren (sodass der mittlere Teil dünn und knusprig ist).

I love the food in south Germany or Austria! The enjoyment of having a Brezel or Rinderkraftbrühe(mit Backerbsen!) and a nice plate of Wurstsalat after a long hike is so satisfying...

Das war klasse! Bei Dir weiß man immer, dass man keinen Schmarrn oder halbgar Zusammenrecherchiertes erzählt bekommt. Freue mich auf die nächsten Folgen.

I love this channel I watch alot of the big cooking KZfaq channels and this is one of the best and also who the hell first made pretzels with corrosive dangerous chemicals

I feel called out by the mustard comment. 😅

Although I'm vegan I appreciate your content so much because of the quality of your videos (I assume due to the hard work you put into it). You are so well spoken and explain so much about the whys that I feel like I've learned so much after each of your videos!

We’ve just filled ourselves with your pretzels and they’re amazing! Loved the tip of using beer as the liquid!

That clip of the pretzel bites with seeds reminded me suddenly of the taste of authentic German seedy breads and Brötchen, which I haven't had since the last time I visited my German relatives, nearly 9 years ago. You remind me so much of one of my cousins, by the way.

OMG I absolutely adored the Butterbrezn I used to get outside of Munich mmmmm absolutely gorgeous and I have not found any that can compete.

You can *bake* your *baking soda* to get a higher pH-level

Yay! Thank you for posting this! I've used Alton Brown's recipe but with SO2. I'm definitely going to try yours next. My partner who speaks Gernan and I really miss Berlin from our visit there a few years ago. Loved the pretzels of course!

Gutes Video wie immer ! Mach weiter so, es macht immer spaß die Story hinter dem ganzen Essen heraus zu finden. Danke für die Unterhaltung !

one man oktoberfest

You can get NaOH in the Apotheke. You shouldn't use NaOH drain cleaner because of heavy metal contamination.

Great vid! Soft pretzels have disappeared from my part of the U.S.A. so I'm glad to have a recipe with delicous looking results. Thanks Letch and Rocky for your suggestions.

Thank you! The drano added a subtle hint to the brezl!

What the heck, you didn’t say the baking temperature

In german we say "Wie beim Brezelbacken" to express, if something goes quick and easy. THis of course only refers to the shaping of the Prezels, which is done with a neat little trick by the pros. There are super fun videos on the internet of people doing this. I was kinda hoping to see you do this but then again, this ought to be a beginners guide, right? Oh and by the way. Wouldn't using baked Bakingsoda solve the alkaline problem? If i remember corectly, baked baking soda has a ph of 11. I belive Alex talked about that in his Ramen series. However, its still not the safest thing to do so i guess regular baking soda is fine. I mean who am I? The Prezelpolice?

DANKE DANKE DANKE habe ewig nach einem guten Breznrezept geschaut und heute landet dein Video hier bei mir auf'm PC. Danke.

Yeeeessss!! The manner in which to bypass the alkalinity issue and also the inclusion of diastatic malt. Perfect, just what I needed. I'm totally going to try this recipe, thanks @My Name Is Andong for that!

Andong: dont use drain cleaner! Muricans: muh freedom😡

I'm from Brazil and I live near the city which hosts the biggest Oktoberfest outside Germany. i am usually not a fan of it (because over here it is kinda like The Walking Dead due to all the drunk people wandering around and throwing up everywhere), but this year I'll celebrate it - at home, with your recipe and some good beer ;)

Im a UK boy, but i have SUCH a weakness for German foods, and Pretzels (now corrected to the proper name, thank you Andong!) are an all time favourite of mine, nothing better than a warm fresh baked one and a coffee on my lunch break from the local bakery (well, when i used to work that is haha). DEFINITELY going to give this a go, as well as the dip, it looks delicious! both my sons love Brezn aswell, so i expect it isnt going to last long, better make an extra large batch haha Many thanks for the video my man, i'm so glad i found your channel, every video you do is informative and engaging, keep up the good work and be well :)

I was curious about the german recipes at first, but gotta say these look legit. Gute Arbeit für nen Dude aus der Hauptstadt! :D

"bake" the soda to increase the alkalinity of the solution after adding it to water. 120'C for 1h should do it.

You can increase the alkalinity of your baking soda by baking it dry on a tray first. Sodium Bicarbonate < Sodium Carbonate.

I’m always amazed by the quality of the videos and your English is INCREDIBLE!!!

that sauce looks amazing!!

As a philadelphian it blew my mind when you said that germans don't eat their pretzels with mustard.

Thank you so much, Andong for the recipe. I just notice that you haven't mentioned the temperature of the oven, is 350 F the right temperature?

I made these this morning with the cheese dip, and everything turned out beautiful and DELICIOUS! Thanks for the recipes!!

I tried your German coleslaw recipe... it is fabulous. Unfortunately, I’m not on Instagram, or any other Facebook portfolio platform, so I cannot post pictures, but I will most certainly try this Bretzel recipe! Ich liebe deutsches Essen! Vielen Dank für die Rezepte!

I was so surprised when he cut the Brezel in lengthwise. In the part of Germany I am from I have never in my life used anything but my own two hands to tear it and eat it. And I have never seen anyone else do it any other way. I mean doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of eating it. Because you can undo the twist and tear it of and eat each individually thick part in the order that you enjoy the most??! God I never thought I'd get so riled up over Brezeln... That's the most German thing I have ever said/typed...

Chives is so northern German, or so Berlinlike. Here in “Süden“ we eat Brezeln with only butter. But great recipe, hut ab! :-)

Thank you very much for a detailed and clear explanation of the recipe, especially for the substitute for that dangerous poison. Cheers!

Haven't started watching but I liked the video immediately. Trying this recipe tomorrow!

Is it just me or didn't you mention a temperature for the oven?

Can you show how to make a classic German pork knuckle? Definitely a highlight of visiting Deutschland!

I simply love your videos. I love that I can learn all this info and history, and I come away with a recipe to try. Alternatively, I adore finding new and interesting recipes, which come parcelled with all these facts and explanations that make it so much more than just food. Plus, everything always looks beautiful! Thank you for creating.

surprisingly, the beer you poured into the dough is the only german beer sold at my local corner store in Portland, Oregon! If i didn't brew my own beer, that would be a convenient choice.

Oh wow, I didn't know that mustard for dipping wasn't traditional. I live in Wisconsin which has a lot of German history and pretzels usually come with both mustard and a cheese dipping sauce. It's usually a whole grain, spicy kind of mustard.

You can also bake the baking soda in the oven before adding it to water. This will get you closer to a pH of 10. Alkaline solutions cause gelatinization of the proteins in dough. This is why ramen noodles use alkaline water when making their dough, to increase the noodles’s springiness.

Du hast mich wirklich erschrocken mit der Dranoflasche!!!

Nice recipe, and thank you so much for the proper pronunciation of pretzel, as an American who is interested in learning German and travelling to Germany that was helpful. Prost! 🍻

Guten Tag!! Thanks for sharing. I have been to Germany 3 times, love the bread but never tried Pretzel. Next trip will take note of it and try one. Hahaha. Cheng Pei

Crazy idea: Pizza with Brezn crust and Obazda “sauce”. I want to try it

I woke up this morning, saw your video and had pretzel cravings all day so I made some for dinner 😅

Definitely very good at speaking. And very informative without being exhausting.

I only learned that butter thing after i moved to the south. Here it's everywhere but i haven seen that before. Seems to be at least somewhat regional.

I am from Bavaria and I am approving this video. You did a greate job! Also we eat pretzel with sweet mustard.

Blanching the dough in lye reminds me of how mooncakes use jiǎnshuǐ! So convenient that both seasonal recipes share an unusual ingredient.

You are the definition of TALENT

Grüße aus München, feier deinen Channel sehr! Some thoughts: - Bakeries in Bavaria, at least here in the "deep south" usually don't roll out the edges as thin as in your video, the center is still bigger but with very thin edges the arms become harder and crispier than the rest of the Breze, which does make for a nice texture contrast overall. As far as I'm aware that's more of a rest-of-Germany thing though. I have no strong opinion about either option though really - both is accepted and loved. - Good Obazda is heaven and it's so easy to make (as we saw!) that I really question people's sanity when I find a store bought one in their fridge - please, don't do that, they're terrible and taste nothing like the real thing. I also recommend making boat loads of it if you can, keeping it in the fridge for a week at least makes it even better - don't worry about white "moldy" spots forming, that's part of the flavour! Of course leave the shallots/onions out when preparing the whole mixture since those do go bad way quicker than the rest. Add them on top afterwards, that's just fine. Now this is a tad unorthodox and I have gotten some dirty-bordering-on-disgusted looks for it but I like a few bits of Limburger in there! Limburger is a very intensely smelling and tangy tasting cheese so go easy on it - I personally love it because it adds some contrast to the rather mild cheese (like camembert or brie) you use as the "base". - Love to see Bavarian food represented on a international channel. All of that good stuff is available throughout the year too, and not only during or at the Oktoberfest. Honorable mention goes to the mighty Leberkas, the godfather of quick snacks during the day, personal favorite dish is probably Schweinsbraten with Semmelknödel (pork roast with bread dumplings). Perfect combination of all sorts of savoury flavours and textures (the crust 😍 ) in my opinion. - My take on the mustard issue - the only time I'd ever think of dipping Brezn in any kind of mustard is when I've put too much of the sweet mustard on my plate when eating Weißwürscht and need something to clean it all up. Don't even start with mittelscharfer Senf (the "standard" mustard in Germany)! Condiment-wise that's reserved for Fleischpflanzerl (more commonly known as Frikadellen or Buletten in the rest of Germany). - Last one, I promise! Fun fact on the topic of American-Bavarian culinary relations: Spezi, probably the hallmark non-alcoholic drink in Bavaria, was described by Americans as "carbonated swamp water with the taste of thinned down cough syrup". Now Spezi is nothing but a cola and orange lemonade mix but why the home nation of soft drink and fast food empires can't wrap their minds around such a simple yet amazing thing has always escaped me. Has become more of a thing in the rest of Germany though which is great to see.

Thank I always like a good bretzel like my großmütter used to buy in Freiburg

I totally agree with you on the issue of salt on Pretzels! The big salt chuncks make it too salty for taste so I remove them, but not having any salt on it just doesn't feel right.

GREAT episode. I am so ready for a Brezel now.

I'm part German in the US. Our son was born during Oktoberfest so he tends to ask for a lot of German meals, snacks, sweets for his Birthday ever year.

The perfect follow up video would be How to make Snyder's of Hanover Honey mustard and onions pretzel pieces. Those little bites are delicious!!

The cafe\bistro place in the village where I was stationed served the most awesome breakfast sandwiches on pretzel rolls. This was in the Eifel, near the Luxembourg border.

Totally have to try them out! They have been on my to-do list for many years, but I was too afraid to use a sodium hydroxide solution for the pretzels. Glad you are making pretzels without it.👍

My way of eating pretzels: the thicker parts like a bread roll, sliced into halves and then covered with butter and chives, and the thinner twisted parts which are like crunchy sticks, dipped into obazda... @Andong are you team "thicker with butter" or "thin and dipped", if you have to choose? 🥨🥨🥨

Hi Andong! It would be cool if you make a video on german 'Dampfnudeln' and how to master them (of course if you like them too). I do think that Dampfnudeln are banging and can easily compete with other fluffy dough dished from around the world, but they are definitely not that popular.

Your channel is absolutely amazing! I stumbled on to it one day and now I’m hooked. You are a great creative cook and an even better host keep up the good work. 👍🇩🇪

Great recipe. Tried and tested. Followed it to the tee and turned out amazing. Thanks!

Brezn frisch aus dem Ofen, mit Almbutter und nen Haufen Schnittlauch... Hhmmmm... so, hab jetzt Hunger und Lust auf ne gescheite Brotzeit... 🍅🥒🌶🥨🥨🧀🥓

Greetings from Bavaria! Really nice recipe (hast guad gmacht!) , just maybe leave out the cream cheese ;P

Saving this for later!! My sister loves pretzels and this will be the perfect thing to make together

Thank you for beeing there Andong I really enjoy your Videos. I would like to add some Story to the Laugenbrezel. Cause we swabians are a bit grumpy about the Bavarians take nearly All the Credit for the brezel. There are two kinds of Laugenbrezeln. The swabian and the Bavarian. The swabian has crunshy Tips and a higher fat content combined with the typically belly cut which prevents it From ripping. While the Bavarian has the same thickness All through so no crunshy Tips, everything chewy and no cut so it can rip whereever it wants to.

Did I miss the temperature? I’ve watched this a few times. I’m going to assume it’s 350F?

"That highly encourages the Maillard reaction, also know as delicious browning" "Yeah, of course... I knew that ^^'"

There’s a German restaurant in the town where I grew up and they always served bread with obatzda, except I never knew what this wonderful spicy cheesy buttery spread was called until now! So stoked to finally learn what it is and hopefully make it soon!

I have enjoyed these every morning while staying in Schwabach last july when I was there. Thank you very much again for a very inspiring recipe, I shall have to make these this sunday :)

Such cheese dips were made in northern Italy too, as an accompaniment to drinking too. We usually let them mature... Gets pungent to say the least.

What is the oven temperature?

Now I know how to make baking malt. Thanks!

At what temperature should I bake them? I don't think he mentions it in the video. Btw if you see this, love vid, keep the good work dude! :)

11:14 when I saw that container with white stuff, I assumed it as MSG🙄

You'd probably also enjoy your Brezen with Spundekäs. It's similar to Obazda but without the Brie. Very popular in the Rhein-Main / Rhein-Hessen area.

Yes, I experienced the mustard in the US, too. It was weird. I also recommend a seed mixture called "everything bagel" for the bites.

Hot damn I want to use ground Sichuan peppercorns as a topping.

Advice: Don’t use drain cleaner *USA has entered the chat* Is that a challenge?

The Obazda sauce is amazing. I did not have those soft cheeses so used a Wisconsin white cheddar goat cheese and it turned out great! Will be experimenting with various cheese for sure. Pretzel bites were a solid alternate to make quicker that traditional pretzels.

I've found my new favorite KZfaq channel. I just need to stop watching late at night,

I’m from Vienna and but sweet mustard on everything. So guuuuud