Once the dough has relaxed, you can roll the strands even thinner. Leave them thick in the middle. Form into a pretzel shape and use water to make the ends stick to the middle. Place on a wax paper-lined pan and put them in the refrigerator for one hour.
The traditional German shape trisects the loop of dough to form three, evenly sized holes.
You don't have to twist them arduously by hand. Professional pretzel bakers can grab the ends, flip once horizontally, once vertically and their pretzels are perfectly formed. Rank amateurs (like us) have to wrestle them into shape.
