Red Devil lye?? In cooking????yesh!

I checked out a wonderful book at the library yesterday. It is called "Bread Bible". It has 100's of bread recipes from around the world.

One was a pretzel recipe.

The pretzel recipe called for adding a 4% lye glaze and I'm thinking I'm not about to try that one..here is the quote from one of the steps in the recipe:

step 5
(in bold print)
Make the lye solution. Be very careful when working with lye, as it is extremely caustic and will burn if it comes in direct contact with skin. Cover your nose with a handkerchief until the lye is dissolved to avoid irritation. Use only glass, stainless steel or other nonreactive container.

I know how caustic lye is...I tried making soap a couple of times...rough stuff..I also know lye is formed from wood ash..but still, yesh! Have you ever read the side of a lye can on what to do in case you ingest it?

Curious about this, I did a search..I found some talk about this at this link:
http://cheftalkcafe.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-10733.html

I don't think I'll make these pretzels anytime soon..lol. Well, if I do, it'll be without the lye glaze..

Just did another quick search on this practice, it must be a common thing with pretzel making, here is the footnotes from another site:

1. This stuff is not only poisonous, it is extremely... well, caustic.
It will eat a hole in your hand if you let it, so don't play any games
with it & keep it far away from kids. Flush any unintentional contact
with water.


This message was edited Dec 16, 2004 7:33 AM