Sourdough Bread And Fermenting Yeast

[Jestgar]

Sourdough fermentation is a traditional process that retains its importance in wheat baking because it improves bread quality by prolonging shelf life, increasing loaf volume, delaying staling, as well as by improving bread flavour and nutritional properties (Thiele et al., 2004). Fermentation of wheat and rye flours with selected sourdough lactic acid bacteria following an ancient protocol which includes long-time fermentation may at the moment decrease the risk of gluten contamination in gluten-free products. Although for celiac disease patients the goal is not to decrease the gluten toxicity but to eliminate it, the authors’ laboratory is currently using a more complex microbial pool with the addition of fungal proteases which decreases the level of persistent gluten below 20 ppm and is optimizing the baking quality of the bread to get superior nutritional, sensory and rheological characteristics with respect to the current gluten-free products.

Sourdough lactobacilli and celiac disease

Marco Gobbetti, a, , Carlo Giuseppe Rizzelloa, Raffaella Di Cagnoa and Maria De Angelisa

aDipartimento di Protezione delle Piante e Microbiologia Applicata, Università degli Studi di Bari, Via G. Amendola 165/a, 70125 Bari, Italy

[LKelly8]

Interesting. From Italy, of course. The land of everything yummy.

I loved sourdough, I jumped for joy when Whole Foods announced their gluten-free sourdough. (Still haven't seen it locally.)

[spunky]

I started making my own sourdough breads when I was very suspcious about gluten bothering me. I always had batches of starter bubbling away all over the kitchen, and made everything, from breads to cakes and pancakes with sourdough.

Sorry to say, it still made me sick. I'd read the lactobacillus was supposed to disable the gluten, but it didn't help me. I'd read that sprouting wheat also uses up the gluten as energy for the sprouts. I had wheat sprouting in the kitchen, ground up the berries after they'd sprouted, and made them into flatbreads and cookies. These were my last ditch efforts before going gluten free...I was sicker than a dog.

Sorry...maybe it would work for others or by some other process or something, but it sure didn't help me when I made those things.

[eKatherine]

I developed a quick starterless sprouted sourdough rye bread that was incredibly tasty. I soaked the rye grains, drained off the liquid and allowed the soluble starches to ferment (natural yeast) while I sprouted the grains. I then put the grains through the blender with the liquid, added enough whole wheat flour to make it workable, added salt, and that was it. Maybe one of you has a friend or relative who is into sourdough and can make use of the technique.

I sure wouldn't eat it.

Seriously, what is "sour" about sourdough is the fact that the bacteria and yeast are fermenting the soluble starches into alcohol, carbon dioxide, and lactic acid. It will have very little effect on the gluten in a grain. Proteins don't ferment, they break down into ammonia and other noxious things.

[spunky]

At this point, I feel so much better that I can't even stand the thought of sourdoughing wheat/rye, etc. anymore. It just reminds me of feeling terrible.

But I am wondering about teff. We used to eat in an Ethiopian restaurant (now gone out of business) and the food was absolutely excellent stuff...they make a bread with teff flour, called injera. They allow teff flour and water to ferment for ???? hrs., until bubbly, and then make a flatbread with it that's incredibly thin and flexible. The first time we went to this restaurant, they brought out the food laying in little places on a big tray lined with this injera bread...I thought that bread was a big napkin...LOL. The lady showed us that instead of using forks & knives in Ethiopian cuisine, you just tear off a piece of the injera bread, wrap it around whichever very nicely spiced veggie (or meat, if you eat meat--Ethiopian isn't necessarily limited to veggies) and put it into your mouth by hand. The bread is pleasantly sour-tasting, and goes really well with the spicy foods.

I wanna try to ferment some teff and see how I do with injera. I tried it once several years ago and it was a total disaster...maybe it's time to try again now!

[Jestgar]

I love injera bread.

If you get this to work will you post the process?

[spunky]

If I ever figure out the secret to making this stuff, I'll be happy to post!

[fantasticalice]

Today I bought Ivory Teff tortillas(big ones)made by Open Original Shared Link

I also am buying some Italian wheat after reading an article in Whole Living about sourdough.

[T.H.]

I love injera bread.

If you get this to work will you post the process?

This is the best recipe I have found to date: Open Original Shared Link

It is a step by step set of instructions on the starter AND the recipe for making the bread - you may have to check out her links to get it all, as she has a few posts. This gal is a westerner who lived in Ethiopia for a while and got lots of advice and practice from other Ethiopian women, but was ignorant like us to begin with.

She does hers with wheat as well, but I followed the instructions using just injera and it turned out amazing. :-)

[T.H.]

maybe it would work for others or by some other process or something, but it sure didn't help me when I made those things.

There has been speculation for a while in the Celiac testing community that tests for gluten levels may not detect gluten as accurately when gluten is broken into smaller pieces, which happens during hydrolyzation and fermentation (like the sourdough).

A new test was developed recently that detects fragments of protein more accurately than before, and it was used to judge how well previous gluten tests actually did in testing for gluten in fermented and hydrolyzed wheat products. Turns out, previous tests WERE underestimating the gluten in these products, sometimes by almost half.

So that puts into doubt any test results from fermented wheat products, like the sourdough. Fermentation may lower gluten, but we don't have good tests yet to tell us by how much, except for our own bodies. :-/