I've been making traditional German pretzels with a lye bath, but the pretzels tend to bake onto the baking sheets. I've tried a few different kinds of trays, all with less that perfect results.
- Non-stick coatings actually stick to the bottom of my pretzels and
get pulled off the trays. - Some pans without coatings react visibly with the lye solution, i.e.
bubbling. Unfortunately, I'm not sure which metal this pan was made
of. On the other hand, the pretzels stick less. - Wax paper sticks to the degree that I have to cut it off.
I would like to find a solution that prevents my pretzels from sticking and me from ingesting any Teflon, metal, or paper.
Best Answer
You can avoid the tray altogether and bake them on a steel rack. Lye doesn't react with stainless steel (or with carbon steel, for that matter). It will stick lightly to the rack, just like anything else on stainless, but due to the small surface, you should be able to separate them.
The second way would be to just use enough rock salt on a steel tray so that they are too high to stick. But it might mean that you'll get too much salt embedded in them.
And as a final word, you might just be using too much lye, or too strong a solution. Pretzel were baked long before there were silpats, and they didn't strip the seasoning off the tray.
Avoid any coated trays (teflon, enamel), and, most of all, aluminium.