Hi, I wonder if anyone can help me please. I have a starter that I usually feed with a wheat/rye combo, and as I am making (a very good) gluten free bread for friends, I thought I would see if anything happened if I fed some leftover starter with soy flour. Well all I can say is that it went ballistic. I repeated it again over a few days with the same result. I figured that if I did this for a couple of weeks there would be so little gluten left in it that it would be of no consequence. It does not smell like normal starter in fact it is a bit unpleasant. Does anyone know if this would work as a rising agent with corn and buckwheat flour? That is my normal method with yeast as the rising agent.
Thank you.
Replies
this is interesting.
I have heard of people using rice flour for gluten free starters, but that it generally makes a weak starter which needs frequent feeding.
What does the starter smell/taste like when grown on soy flour?
You might just have discovered something quite useful.
In terms of how much gluten would be left after a couple of weeks, you are right that the serial dilution from feeding would make it negligible. If you only used a little started when feeding, say a 1:10 ratio, then by 9 feeds you are down to 1 billionth of the original starter still present.
Also, research shows that well fermented soughdough loaves (albeit very well fermented) won't set off coeliacs, so I should imagine that any gluten is well enough digested to be harmless after a few refreshes of your starter.
I think it would definately be worth a try in your gluten free bread. I'd certainly be very interested to hear how you go. I would like to see a good example of gluten free sourdough.
All the best
J
Thanks for your interest J. I am away for about a week and have put the starter in the fridge along with my old trusty so can't comment on the smell further. I think I might try this starter for a wheat loaf as well as a GF loaf when I get home. It might be dead by then, who knows. Maybe you could give it a go in the meantime? I wonder if the reason why it was so wild is that soy is so high in protein? It more than doubled its size in less than half the time at about 28 degrees ambient temperature.
Well, I came home after several days away and dutifully fed my regular starter, and it is woeful. Bubbles but no rise. I need to be home for a week or two to regularly feed it to give it some ooomph maybe. But mate, the soy dude is rocking. First feed nothing much, but the next day's feed saw it go crazy, and it stays risen by more than double for 10 hours! Have to go away to the country again for about 5 days, so everything is going into the fridge till I return. Eager to experiment with this thing.
So it's not just crazy, it's robust as well.
You could be really onto something. I'm not in a position to be baking at the moment, but in a month or so I could be giving it a try.
You could call it Miso bread!
We could indeed call it miso bread. Would you like to play along with me experimenting with this critter. Another eight hours later and it is still holding its expansion. Will feed shortly and put in the fridge for another week as I am away again. It seems to sulk for the first refresh after being in the fridge, but is very grateful by the second. I am thinking that a soy flour bread might be a bit dry. I am going to play with combinations including cornflour, very fine corn meal, some soy to keep it happy and chia seeds (soaked) for moisture. Any comments about this welcome. I am a newbie to the gluten free thing but horrified at what is available for celiacs.
Interested to see your adventures with soy. I haven't baked with soy for a long time, but I do recall it holding its moisture pretty well.
I have 3 GF starters working at present: buckwheat, millet and quinoa. Buckwheat is the most friendly and most forgiving, I think (!) I have only been working with quinoa for a few weeks, and I suspect it will prove to be every bit as friendly and flexible as buckwheat - only drawback is that quinoa is about 3 times the cost of buckwheat, and buckwheat twice the cost of millet!