Lydia with our finished product. We learned a bit about the role of baking soda in pretzels. Baking soda is basic, so adding the baking soda encourages the crust to form sooner, because of a chemical reaction which causes the dough to get broken down into sugars faster, leaving a dark colored outside with a still chewy and moist inside. Apparently food grade lye works even better, but it's hard to find. My new favorite baking web site, TheFreshLoaf.com had lots of information about this.