Form the dough into one foot-long strands and let rest a few minutes. This relaxes the gluten and lets the dough be rolled even thinner. Spritz with water, if necessary, to make the dough more manageable.
Two stories about the lye bath, told by Peter Mangold, have one thing in common, that the lye dunking was accidental, but the results were so good that the innovation became commonplace. One story is that the bakery's cat knocked them into a vat and there was no time to make a new batch, another story claims that the lye water was mistaken for sugar water and brushed onto the pretzels.
