How Long Does Gluten Live In Things?

[sreese68]

I used to work for a ceramic cookie stamp company about 13 or 14 years ago (Rycraft). The stamps have a design on the end, and you press them onto rolled up cookie dough, so each cookie ends up with that design on it. The handles are glazed, but the the part you stamp on the cookies is not. We were allowed to take home all the seconds we wanted, so I have a TON of porous ceramic cookie stamps in my attic.

I know CC is a HUGE issue for ceramics since they're porous, so I obviously won't use the ones I used recently. BUT what about the ones that have been in the attic the last 10 years? Would you risk it? Wouldn't gluten eventually die off?

I don't know if I can put these into my self-cleaning oven because I don't know if the glaze would be OK. I guess I could ask the owner/my former boss

[mbrookes]

I would not use them at all. Gluten is not like a bacteria that will die. Once it is there it is there until it is removed. High temp won't kill it.

[kareng]

Gluten doesn't die. It's not living. Think of it like sand. You have little bits of sand in all the cracks that can fall out into your cookies. Or when the new cookie dough oozes up into the little cracker, it can grab some. Can you bake these molds at high temps? The oven cleaning cycle is supposed to be hot enough to burn the gluten protein. Put a piece of foil in the oven & try to cook one.

[GlutenFreeManna]

As the pp's said, gluten is not "alive" so it doesn't die. I would not use those stamps if I were you.

[Poppi]

I would try one in the self clean oven. Ceramics are fired in a kiln, right? A kiln gets far hotter than the self clean cycle on the oven so it should be okay.

I still haven't gotten around to running my baking stone through the self clean. It's saturated with years of gluten but I haven't been able to bring myself to toss it so I'm going to give it a try.

[sreese68]

I was afraid I'd get answers like these! That's too bad. I guess I'll research the self-cleaning oven idea. I know the ceramics and glaze initially got baked at high temps in the kiln, but I don't know how already-baked glaze reacts to high temps. If there's any risk it'll shatter, I'll just replace my favorites.

If I have to give them away, at least I know my fellow homeschool moms will appreciate them. We have mom's night outs monthly during the school year with attendance anywhere from 20 - 50 moms. The table for free items is always popular!

[lovegrov]

I would not use them at all. Gluten is not like a bacteria that will die. Once it is there it is there until it is removed. High temp won't kill it.

I'm pretty certain that a very high temp does in fact "kill" the gluten, i.e. incinerates it. As someone else mentioned, probably the self-cleaning temp would do it.

richard