Alton Brown's Pretzels

I'm a fan of soft pretzels. Warm, chewy, sweetish pretzels. I tried to make some and they turned out very well. The recipe is adapted from Alton Brown's.

This recipe makes 4 pretzels.

Ingredients:
1 oz unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cups water, 46C
1/2 tbs sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp instant yeast
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
10 cups boiling water
2/3 cup baking soda
1 egg yolk+1 tbs water

Method:

1) Add sugar, salt and yeast to water.
2) Add yeast water and melted butter to flour and mix on low speed until dough comes together. Knead.
3) Put in greased bowl and cover for 1 hour till double up.
4) Preheat oven to 450F/232C and grease baking sheet.
5) Divide dough to 4 portions or 4.5 oz each.
6) Roll out or squish dough and roll up again and lengthen to rope of 24 inches.
7) Shape it and place on baking sheet. Cover with damp tea towel.(Let rise for 5 min)
8) Prepare 10 cups of water with baking soda and boil. Bath pretzels in mixture for 30 seconds. Then place on baking sheet.


9) Brush with egg yolk.
10) Bake for 14 minutes, spinning tray around 7 minutes in.