Buckwheat Sourdough Starters?

[Laura]

RyanX posted a sourdough bread recipe but it was a wheat bread. I'm interested in whether or not sourdough starters can be made without wheat flour. Anyone game to try? I found this on the net:

Sourdough Starters

By: Sydny Carter

Starters have been used for centuries to both leaven and flavor bread.

Today's bakers make a wide range of baked goods from starters, or soured doughs, including breads, pancakes, biscuits, and even chocolate cake.

Getting Started

Some of the best starters are established, stable colonies that have been developed to provide predictable results. Adopting or purchasing a tried-and-true starter is your best bet, although you can begin your own with very little trouble. Yeast and bacillus are everywhere in our environment, including the water and milled grains used to make most starters. It is possible to mix together just these two ingredients, and create a new starter in a number of days. We have recipes for wild yeast starters here on the site, as well as a few made with domesticated yeast, i.e. packages of active dry yeast. Domesticated yeasts have been developed to give predictable rising characteristics. The starters made with them are more akin to a sponge--a "poolish" for French bakers, "biga" for Italian--in the beginning, and may require many months to develop the desired "tang" of a sourdough.

Recipes for Success

Regardless of the source of the yeast, there are a few things to keep in mind when making a starter from scratch.

* Use non-chlorinated water: adding chlorine to your starter will almost certainly destroy the very organisms you are hoping to nurture. Use distilled or filtered water, or simply leave tap water open to the air for 24 hours to evaporate the chlorine.
* Choose unprocessed grains such as whole wheat or rye flour for the best results when beginning a starter. You can switch to bread flour or all-purpose flour after the first few feedings.
* One of the most common mistakes made during the first few days of culture is starving the yeast. Even if you do not see any activity, the starter must be fed every 24 hours in the beginning. Failure to provide enough food for your colony will result in a stinky gooey mess, as mold and "bad" bacteria take over your starter.
* Store in a glass or ceramic container at room temperature, and cover with a loose-fitting lid or a piece of damp cheesecloth.

Did It Work?

Your starter should resemble a foamy, thick pancake batter; the aroma should be yeasty and slightly sour. Starters will sometimes separate into a clear liquid and a denser layer of flour. This is fine: just stir it together before using. If the mixture smells bad, is any color other than creamy white or slightly yellow, or has a furry mold colony, throw it out. Also, if there are no bubbles after 3 to 5 days, discard and begin again.


Maintaining Your Starter

Professional bakers keep their starters at room temperature and feed at 6- to 8-hour intervals. This method produces a lot, and if you are not baking everyday you could end up flushing a good bit down the kitchen sink. Most home bakers store starter in the refrigerator. This slows down the growth of both the yeast and the bacillus.

Feeding Tips

* Room temperature is considered to be between 70 to 80 degrees F (21 to 27 degrees C). Cooler temperatures will tend to slow down growth, while warmer temperatures will speed it up. Take this into consideration when setting up a feeding schedule. You should plan to feed your starter every 6 to 8 hours when it is kept at room temperature.
* Usually a feeding consists of stirring in amounts of flour and water equal to the amount of starter you have. For instance, if you have 2 cups of starter, stir in 2 cups flour and 2 cups water. This may have to be adjusted slightly to maintain the consistency.
* Always feed the starter at the peak of activity, when the mixture is bubbling actively and is at its greatest volume. Do not wait for the scheduled feeding, especially if the volume is decreasing. This indicates that the yeast have run out of food, and are beginning to die off.
* After feeding, whip air into the batter using a wire whisk to provide the yeast with a bountiful amount of oxygen.

Tips for Refrigerated Starters

A refrigerator will keep your starter at temperatures between 36 and 38 degrees F (2 to 3 degrees C). Growth will slow quite a bit, but not completely.

* Feed the starter right before placing in the refrigerator, and whip with a wire whisk to incorporate oxygen.
* The starter will need to be fed once a week. If you will not be using it, discard half, measure, and feed accordingly.


There are differing opinions about using the starter after it has been stored in the refrigerator. All agree on one point: the starter should be fed at least once, and allowed to reach peak activity before incorporating into a recipe. (This will take about 6 to 8 hours.) For the best flavor, some bakers recommend building the starter up with several feedings in order to bring the yeast and bacillus to the highest possible level of activity. Since there are many thousands of organisms per gram of starter, you can use very small amounts of starter in this process.

* Remove 2 tablespoons from your starter, and mix with 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water. Continue feeding at 6 hour intervals until you have made enough starter for your recipe.
* After the first feeding, maintain a ratio of 1 part starter: 1 part flour:1 part water per feeding, effectively doubling the starter each time you feed it.

Freezing and Drying

These are additional methods of storage, and are also good insurance policies against losing an especially good creation. When the starter has reached peak activity, give it a mini feeding, about 1/4 of what you would ordinarily feed it. Freeze in an airtight container. To use, defrost at room temperature. Feed, and then use in your recipe when the mixture is bubbly and active.

Alternatively, spread starter in a thin layer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Allow to dry at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. To restart, crumble dried starter in warm water, and begin regular feedings. Store frozen for up to 6 months or dried for 2 to 3 months. Incidentally, sending dried starter through the mail is an excellent way to share it with a faraway friend or relative.

 

[RyanX]

RyanX posted a sourdough bread recipe but it was a wheat bread. I'm interested in whether or not sourdough starters can be made without wheat flour. Anyone game to try?

I will try experimenting with this and post back my results. Does it have to be buckwheat or will any gluten free flour do? I did find a blog where somebody had made a successful sourdough culture with rice flour.

_http://gingerlemongirl.blogspot.com/2008/08/hide-and-seek-tweaking-gluten-free.html

The type of flour used to feed the culture doesn't have to be the only flour used in the final bread product. For instance, one could feed the sourdough culture with just rice flour and then during breadmaking add in a cup or two of buckwheat flour or other flour types for taste, health or whatever purpose. This is common even with wheat-based sourdoughs.

The author of this summary says to use wheat or rye flour, but I don't think those particular flours are necessary to have a sourdough culture. From other sources I've read, these are just the "traditional" flours used in sourdough bread making. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that any flour with enough starch content can be used for a sourdough culture. This should be a fun experiment! :)

 

[Johnno]

Yes, I'll see what I can come up with this weekend. Although it's getting cold here (by Aussie standards) so I'm not sure how successful and/or rapid the fermentation will be. Should be interesting nevertheless.

 

[Jimbo]

It seems that according to research referenced by the weston price foundation (http://www.westonaprice.org/) homemade sourdough bread and other sourdough based products have a significantly lowered level of gluten and is not only tolerated by individuals with celiac but also comes highly recommended. Here is some selected quotes that I have found on the weston price site and others related and/or mentioning similar information:
"Among the communities Price studied, there was only one that consumed gluten grains, an isolated village of Swiss living high in the Alps. They ate sourdough fermented rye bread, topped with vast amounts of grass-fed butter. Price, and many whose nutritional philosophies he has influenced over the years (like Sally Fallon) have surmised that sourdough fermentation is critical for healthy consumption of gluten grains.
You probably know that people living with celiac disease are sensitive to gluten, but there is some indication that a significant number of us have some level of gluten sensitivity as well. One study showed that four out of five people had an immune system response to gliadin (a protein involved in the formation of gluten), the same kind of response the body has when it’s invaded by a pathogen. Could sourdough fermentation break down gluten found in grains?
A paper I recently found adds weight to the theory that it can, at least to some extent. This study mimicked contamination of gluten-free bread dough with small amounts of gluten, as might happen in a bakery that produces both gluten-free and typical bread. One batch of dough was sourdough fermented, while the other was given a typical yeast-rising treatment of non-sourdough bread. The researchers compared the gluten levels, and also the taste and quality, of the final baked breads.
The results were striking. The sourdough fermented breads lost about ninety percent of the added gluten, placing the contaminant level low enough to be safe even for those with celiac disease (below 20 ppm). The gluten levels in the yeast-risen bread remained virtually unchanged. The sourdough version was, subjectively of course, found to have better consistency and flavor. Again, to clarify, this was gluten-free bread contaminated with small amounts of gluten, not bread originally made from gluten grains.
Those with celiac disease and other extreme gluten sensitivity should be especially aware of this result. If you’re purchasing gluten-free bread, go for the sourdough, and request bakeries start making it if they make a non-sourdough gluten-free bread. Sourdough fermentation not only breaks down gluten, it also degrades antinutrients that block absorption of nutrients, meaning it’s a good idea for the non-gluten-sensitive as well."
-http://www.gofrolic.org/gofrolic/food_blog/Entries/2008/11/22_Sourdough%2C_Gluten_and_Weston_Price.html
And further:
ENCOURAGING FINDINGS ON SOURDOUGH BREAD
A study published in February, 2004 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology with the tantalizing title "Sourdough Bread Made from Wheat and Nontoxic Flours and Started with Selected Lactobacilli Is Tolerated in Celiac Sprue Patients," describes the results of an Italian research team which, encouraged by preliminary findings of their earlier work in vitro, designed an in vivo experiment to test their findings. The team's premise was that lactobacilli, chosen for their ability to hydrolyze or sever protein (gliadin) fractions might be key in processing wheat flour so that its toxic properties would be neutralized and therefore not harmful to celiac patients.
Their experiment included 17 subjects, all celiac patients who had been consuming gluten-free diets for at least two years and no longer exhibiting symptoms. The experimental bread was made from a combination of wheat (Triticum aestivum), oat, millet and buckwheat flours, 30 percent of which was wheat. The flour was mixed with a "broth" of four lab-obtained lactobacilli, a dose of baker's yeast and tap water in a continuous high-speed mixer. When the dough was allowed to ferment at about body temperature for 24 hours, almost all of the toxic peptide fractions in the wheat protein had been hydrolized. The bread was then baked and fed to the celiac volunteers (who also bravely ate breads made with plain baker's yeast as "controls"). After consuming the simple yeasted bread, analysis of the volunteers' gut permeability was made, which showed a change in permeability normally associated with celiac response. No such response was noted when the volunteers ate the 24-hour fermented sourdough bread. The authors of the study are cautiously enthusiastic about the results of this "novel bread biotechnology" and its implications for celiac patients.
The results of this study have been criticized by some as simplistic based on the premise that gut permeability is not the best (or only) indicator that damage may have been done by consuming the sourdough bread. Critics also surmise that only the four species of lactobacilli chosen by the researchers will perform the required protein hydrolysis. In other words, "Don't try this at home." While it remains uncertain as to whether or not undisclosed damage may have occurred by consuming the sourdough bread, it is actually a small miracle that the laboratory study worked as well as it did.
Native lactobacilli colonies found in mature sourdough cultures can easily number in the dozens, and could easily include the four chosen by the researchers (one of which was the common sourdough organism L. sanfranciscenis). Lactobacilli are, after all, very common, mostly benign, often downright necessary, creatures, living on and in us as well as on decaying plant matter. In an established sourdough culture they form a stable and self-supporting relationship with one or more families of native yeast fungi. Bakers familiar with sourdough cultures also know that the relationship between the microorganisms and the types of flour used with them is important and affects the outcomes in the bread--rye culture works best with rye, Kamut® culture with Kamut®, and so on, indicating that the symbiosis is more complex than we might think.
A tangential quibble I have with the research lab procedure lies with their use of a high-speed continuous mixer to make their sourdough. Why didn't they just fire up the old cyclotron? In other words, sourdough bread, hardly a "novel biotechnology," requires no such high-energy input, and in fact can be ruined from machine mixing. The equipment used is typical of commercial applications in which no time is allowed for natural dough development, and additives and high energy force the flour to perform. Aside from mixing enough to incorporate all ingredients, sourdoughs do not need to be kneaded and should always be gently handled. The fermenting dough is the visible evidence of the microorganisms at work, developing gluten, softening the dough and denaturing anti-nutrients.
Please, try this at home!"
-http://westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/healing-celiac-disease.html
http://www.realsourdoughbreadrecipe.com/ (author's website that sells sourdough starter and recipe although there is a great selection of free information online, especially on the forementioned weston price main site)

But if you just want to play it safe, I found an online recipe that utilizes gluten free grains to make a sourdough, and I believe I remember seeing a gluten free sourdough starter on the GEM Cultures website as well. Here's the recipe;
"This recipe uses a proprietary brand of gluten-free flour from a UK based company Doves Farm. They produce ordinary gluten-free flour as well as a white and a brown "gluten free bread flour". They have a website at www.dovesfarm.co.uk if you want to look them up.
I confess I haven't made this but in general their recipes are reliable.
Sourdough Starter recipe:
Mix 100g any gluten-free flour and 150ml mineral water in a bowl and leave, covered at room temp for 24 hours.
Stir in 100g flour and 150ml mineral water, cover and leave 12 hours.
Stir the starter, add 100g flour and enough water to return to original runny consistency. Cover and leave 12 hours.
The starter should now be "slightly spongy".
If not needed immediately, cover and refrigerate. Return to room temperature before use.
(It says if starter is to be kept "for any length of time, feed and water it regularly".)
Bread recipe
300g prepared starter
500g gluten free bread flour
300ml hand-hot water
Mix all the above to forma soft and pliable dough.
Turn out onto a floured board and knead vigorously.
Cover with a cloth and leave for 12 hours.
Knock back dough and knead again - add a sprib=nkle of flour if it appears sticky.
Shape dough into a torpedo and place on greased baking sheet.
Cover with a damp cloth and rise about 25 minutes.
Bake for 30-35 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 200c/400f/gas mark 6.
Good luck! Let me know how it turns out"
-http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/416

So you may just want to experiment and see what works best for you. I myself have not tried any of these recipes although I have been highly interested in doing so, and now that it is summer in Northern California I have a primo opportunity. Hope this helps guys, and good luck with all your fermented concoctions! :P

 

[Laura]

The research on sourdough changing the gluten thing is fascinating! Thanks VERY much for this!

 

[RyanX]

Here is the study referenced Jimbo's post:

Sourdough Bread Made from Wheat and Nontoxic Flours and Started with Selected Lactobacilli Is Tolerated in Celiac Sprue Patients

_http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/70/2/1088

I'll post the discussion portion since most of it is rather technical unless you have a biotech background:

This work was aimed at showing the ability of sourdough lactobacilli to hydrolyze wheat prolamins extensively and at finding a novel protocol for manufacturing a sourdough bread that can be tolerated by CS patients.

In a previous paper (18), we showed that selected lactobacilli have the ability to hydrolyze either albumins, globulins, and gliadins during wheat sourdough fermentation or the 31-43 fragment of A-gliadin in vitro and that, after hydrolysis, they greatly reduced the agglutination of the K 562(S) subclone cells of human myelogenous leukemia origin by a toxic PT digest of gliadins. In this study, we first showed that the pool of L. alimentarius 15M, L. brevis 14G, L. sanfranciscensis 7A, and L. hilgardii 51B has a pattern of specialized peptidases capable of hydrolyzing all of the different peptide bonds that potentially include the imino acid proline. Overall, biologically active peptides contain a large proportion of Pro residues within the sequence, which makes them very resistant to hydrolysis by peptidases, which are not specific for Pro bonds (17, 30, 40). The hydrolysis by the four lactobacilli also concerned oligopeptides such as fragment 62-75 of A-gliadin and the 33-mer peptide. Peptide 62-75 is part of a longer fragment, 56-75, of A-gliadin that reacts with tissue transglutaminase and is one of the dominant epitopes responsible for the inappropriate T-cell-mediated immune response in CS patients (1). These hydrolyzing activities are not widespread in dairy lactic acid bacteria. Generally, pure prolyl-endopeptidases have very poor activity on long-chain peptides (30, 44). In our experiments, we used a pool of selected lactobacilli that was supplemented with a pool of their cytoplasmic enzymes.

Notwithstanding the heterogeneity of T-cell epitopes in gluten, a few epitopes appear to account for most of the {alpha}-gliadin recognition by CD4+ T cells from CS patients (1, 4). The most important is probably the 33-mer peptide, for the following reasons: (i) it remains intact despite prolonged exposure to gastric and pancreatic proteases, (ii) other patient-specific T-cell epitopes are present in its sequence, (iii) hydrolysis of the 33-mer peptide (100 µM) by small intestinal brush border membrane enzymes is less than 20% over 20 h of incubation (40), and (iv) it remains intact for a long time (ca. 24 h) in the small intestine and even at a low concentration is able to act as a potential antigen for T-cell proliferation and intestinal toxicity in genetically susceptible individuals (40). Although peptidases capable of hydrolyzing Pro- and Glu-rich peptides are located in the intestinal brush border (2, 3, 11, 12), these epitopes withstand enzymatic processing (27). To our knowledge, the only enzyme proposed as a detoxifying agent for the 33-mer peptide is the prolyl-endopeptidase from F. meningosepticum (40), which is not related to bread biotechnology. In this study, we first showed that sourdough lactobacilli have the ability to hydrolyze the 33-mer peptide extensively or almost totally during prolonged incubation (12 to 24 h).

Previously, a wheat sourdough was produced with the same Lactobacillus species; considerable, but not total, hydrolysis of gliadins was found (18). In this study, the amount of wheat flour was decreased to 30% by mixing with nontoxic (26, 34) oat, millet, and buckwheat flours (ratio, 3:1:4:2). These flours are nutritionally and technologically suitable also (33, 37). Under these conditions, we achieved almost complete hydrolysis of wheat gliadins while prolamins from oats, millet, and buckwheat were affected less or not at all. A comparison with a chemically acidified dough or with a dough started with baker's yeast alone showed that the hydrolysis was due to the proteolytic activity of sourdough lactobacilli and that prolamin fractions were not affected during dough fermentation with yeast. The great extent of hydrolysis during sourdough fermentation was confirmed on various-size, alcohol-soluble polypeptides that were analyzed by RP-FPLC and by determination of free amino acids. Addition of CE to the sourdough started with selected lactobacilli for 12 h markedly increased the concentration of free amino acids, showing a considerable activity of CE toward low- to medium-molecular-mass peptides.

Prior to initiating the in vivo acute challenge, we wanted to confirm our results based on agglutination tests. Overall, a relatively high correlation was found between the agglutination activity of cereal components against K 562(S) cells and their toxicities in clinical and in vitro trials on the basis of biopsy samples of intestinal mucosa from CS patients (6, 9, 41). The MAC of the sourdough started with selected lactobacilli was ca. 250 times higher than those of the control and of the dough started with baker's yeast. It was also confirmed that CE plays a role in the further degradation of intermediate polypeptides from gliadins, which probably still have a toxic effect.

For the in vivo challenge, a bread produced with a very long fermentation time was compared to a bread fermented for 2 h with baker's yeast. A very long fermentation time is a common feature of an ancient tradition for the production of typical wheat sourdough breads (23). After this fermentation, the structure of the dough is obviously collapsed and sourdough is traditionally reused as a starter for a new and very short (2- to 4-h) fermentation process. Under our experimental conditions, the fermented (24 h) wheat sourdough was subsequently mixed with nontoxic flours in the optimal ratio, allowed to ferment for 2 h, and baked at 220°C for 20 min. This type of bread was technologically suitable: the volume was ca. one-half of that started with baker's yeast, and the texture was comparable to that of wheat sourdough breads. To our knowledge, this is the first report of tolerance of CS patients for a bread containing 30% wheat flour on the basis of determination of intestinal permeability during an acute in vivo challenge. Thirteen of the 17 CS patients recruited showed a marked alteration of intestinal permeability after ingestion of baker's yeast bread, while when fed the sourdough bread, the same 13 patients had intestinal permeability values that did not differ significantly from the baseline values. The other four CS patients did not respond to the two types of bread.

The following multidisciplinary research efforts are currently being carried out in several directions to deal with the pathogenesis of CS: (i) engineering of gluten-free grains, (ii) search for the CS genes in humans (20), (iii) use of some protective substances (e.g., mannan and oligomers of N-acetylglucosamine) (7, 41), and (iv) use of bacterial prolyl-endopeptidase from F. meningosepticum as an oral supplementary therapy (40). None of these efforts considered strategies that are pertinent in bread biotechnology. This study shows that CS patients subjected to an acute challenge tolerated breads produced with sourdough better than those started with baker's yeast. These results showed that a bread biotechnology that uses selected lactobacilli, nontoxic flours, and a long fermentation time is a novel tool for decreasing the level of human intolerance to a certain amount of wheat flour. Work is in progress to confirm these results with a long-term in vivo challenge.

[emphasis mine]

I think the longer (24hr) fermentation time should be noted as well.

 

[Jimbo]

In addition to the homemade sourdough bread and related products, other apparently healthy options are store-bought Ezekiel bread and Essene bread. If I recall correctly, in "Eat Right for you Type" Adamo mentions that although type O's have a sensitivity to gluten the sprouting process in the above bread products digests the gluten proteins and also makes the grains more utilizable as a restult of said sprouting process. I have tried Ezekiel bread myself and have suffered no adverse reaction and so this could be an easy store-bought option if you're not particularly interested in having to make and maintain your own sourdough starter at home. And at a price at a little under three dollars for a whole loaf is not something that's going to break the bank (especially if eaten in moderation which is the recommendation anyway). Not only does it not have any gluten, but it's apparently safe for candida sufferers as well, and a simple web search has turned up numerous articles on Ezekiel bread as the ideal bread option for candida sufferers during their detoxification cycle.
But even so, you may want to read the ingredients list carefully, because I believe their are multiple varieties of breads and other products (such as muffins, bagels, etc) which have wheat gluten added.
Now Essene bread is very easy to make at home and according to one source, that I will include below, is the most nutritious bread available. I will not include the recipe in this posting because it is rather lengthy, but I will instead recommend that you visit the following link for further information: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/1984-01-01/Essene-Bread.aspx
Hope this helps.
Now off the sleep, detox is a b#*@.

 

[Gaby]

Very interesting, here is a short version:

_http://grindstonebakery.com/aboutus.htm

The phytochemicals, that function helping plants resist pathogens, are extremely beneficial in protecting humans from cancer and other modern disease, we know them as antioxidants. Whole Grains have antioxidant levels as high as the richest vegetables or fruits but they are tied up in the bran layer and in the germ. They have to be freed to become bio-available to protect our health.

Antinutrients and Gluten in the Whole Grains can be detrimental to our health. Enzyme inhibitors interfere with our digestion, Phytic acid combines with iron, copper, calcium, magnesium and zinc blocking their absorption in the intestinal tract. Gluten intolerance is on the rise worldwide because modern wheat has become so prevalent in the Western diet that humans are actually overdosing on it (scientific research has linked Gluten to a variety of modern diseases like diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis and many others).

Making the antioxidants bio-available and neutralizing the potentially harmful substances is accomplished by the action of our fermentation cultures. They in effect predigest the Whole Grains for us. To feed their growth the Lactic Acid Bacteria generate their molecular building blocks breaking down complex substances by enzymatic action. The end result is that the protective antioxidants are released, the phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors are neutralized, and the gluten content is minimized reducing it to easy to digest small peptides and amino acids.

 

[Gaby]

Some quotes from "Gluten-Sensitive? Celiac Disease? Here's Why You Definitely SHOULD Consider Eating these Fermented Grains"

_http://www.bodyecology.com/07/04/19/gluten-sensitive_eat_fermented_grains.php

Gluten is a hard-to-digest protein found in many whole grains and cereals - and is often hidden in processed foods as binders, starch and fillers.

Hidden sources of gluten in processed foods include:

* Flavored tea and coffee
* Artificial coffee creamer
* Imitation seafood products
* Malt vinegar and white vinegar
* Starch, binders and fillers
* Flavoring
* Emulsifier
* Hydrolized Vegetable Protein
* Soy sauce
* Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)
* Garlic salt, onion salt and some mustard powders

...

1. Gastrointestinal problems often result from an imbalanced inner ecosystem. A healthy inner ecosystem is thriving with good microflora (beneficial bacteria and valuable yeast) that help correct your digestion and boost your immunity. A poor diet full of processed foods, a stressful lifestyle, environmental toxins and drugs can kill healthy microflora, creating digestive problems and setting the stage for illness and disease.

* Individuals who have an imbalanced inner ecosystem and who eat improperly prepared grains for years (not soaking, sprouting or fermenting grains before eating them) can end up with gas, bloating and other digestive problems. These individuals lack healthy "grain-loving" bacteria that help digest grains. I believe this may be the REAL reason behind gluten sensitivity.
* All grains have enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid that make them difficult to digest and inhibits the absorption of minerals in your body. Eating large quantities of grains and flours that have not been soaked, sprouted or fermented can lead to mineral deficiencies, bone loss, digestive illness, allergies, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and mental illness.5

2. Gastrointestinal problems CAN be corrected with a probiotic diet, which is why I originally created the Body Ecology system of health and healing. I've found -- through research and decades of anecdotal feedback from Body Ecology followers - that correcting digestion has a healing effect on all of the organs in your body including the entire gastrointestinal tract. It's also essential for building your immunity. A strong, hardy digestive tract leads to a healthier and even happier life. It's an important secret to maintaining and even restoring your youth.

...

Grains also act as prebiotics (food for healthy microflora).

...

5 key steps to healing your gastrointestinal tract and therefore, your digestion:

1. Focus on healing your inner ecosystem.
2. Remove sugar (even natural sugar from fruits and other high glycemic sweeteners) and foods that feed candida, a systemic fungal infection that affects more than 70% of Americans.
* For a sweet taste with medicinal properties, use Stevia, an all natural herb with zero calories that does not spike your blood sugar or feed candida.
* Acid fruits like unsweetened lemons, limes, cranberries and black currants are okay because they do not feed candida.
3. Remove difficult to digest proteins like gluten in grains, casein in dairy and legumes - eventually, once your digestion heals, you may be able to add them back into your diet. We've learned that this can take 3 months or more, depending on the individual.
* The gluten-free grain-like seeds, amaranth, buckwheat, quinoa and millet are the only grains on the initial stage. We recommend that you prepare them by soaking, sprouting or fermenting them before cooking.
4. Focus on cleansing that helps rid your body of dangerous pathogenic bacteria, viruses, toxins, parasites and yeast.
5. Add fermented foods and drinks - fermented foods, like cultured vegetables and probiotic liquids, like Young Coconut Kefir, are excellent for: healing your digestive tract, increasing the digestibility of foods, repopulating your intestines with healthy microflora, stopping cravings for sugar and processed foods and increasing nutrients in your foods.
* We also recommend convenient, ready-made probiotic liquids, like CocoBiotic, BE Wholegrain Liquid, and Dong Quai. These delicious drinks provide an easy, portable way to repopulate your gut with beneficial microflora and heal your digestion.

...

But What About GLUTEN Grains in Probiotic Liquids?

We've had many e-mails asking why our probiotic liquids have gluten-containing ingredients like wheat, rye and oats.

The process of fermentation breaks the ingredients (like grains and beans, for example) down so that they are more easily digestible, neutralizing the anti-nutrients, like enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid.6,7

Research has been done on the sourdough fermentation process showing that fermenting grains even breaks down the toxic peptides in gluten, neutralizing them as well.8

...

Sources

1 Celiac Disease. National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse.
http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/celiac/index.htm#7

2 Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity. Columbia University Medical Center.
http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/gi/celiac.html

3 ibid.

4 Celiac Disease.
http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/celiac/index.htm#3

5 Fallon, Sally and Enig, Mary. Be Kind To Your Grains. Weston A. Price Foundation. Excerpt from Nourishing Traditions. http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/gluten-intolerance.html

6 Biello, David. Bacteria Render Beans Easier to Digest and More Nutritious. Scientific American.com. April 2006.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000E8F6D-9465-144E-946583414B7F0000

7 Czapp, Katherine. Against the Grain. Weston A. Price Foundation
http://www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/gluten-intolerance.html

8 ibid.

 

[broken.english]

Buckwheat sourdough bread

Buckwheat sourdough bread

Ingredients are for 500 gr buckwheat flour

1. Predough
20 g sourdough starter *
3 g baking ferment powder*
150 g buckwheat flour
130 cc water(40°C)

Mix ingredients and let it sit warm (23-25°C) for about 12 hours

2. Intermediate dough
Three varieties are possible:

* Brühstück (German word)
100 gr buckwheat flour
230 cc boiling water

Mix ingredients and let it cool for 30 minutes

* Quellstück / Aromastück (German words)
100 gr buckwheat flour
230 cc hot water(abt. 60°C)
1 tbsp sourdough starter

Mix ingredients and let it sit for several hours

* Cooked whole buckwheat(instead of buckwheat flour)
70 - 100gr whole buckwheat, cooked with a bit of salt

3. Main dough
Mix predough and intermediate dough with
250 gr buckwheat flour
10 gr rock salt( or use sea salt if your faith in sea salt is strong enough. Mine is not)
160 cc water(abt. 50°C)

Optional ingredients for the main dough:
50 gr ground flaxseeds + 50 cc water, 2-4 tbsp Tahin(sesame paste); for seasoning one can litter some sesame seeds or poppy on top of the bread before baking.

Mix ingredients and let it sit warm for abt. 90 minutes. The dough should rise a bit. Then bake for 50-60 min at 220°C.

Remarks:

* Sourdough starter
I have tried two sourdough starters: A normal one, which was originally grown on spelt and then converted to buckwheat(fed with buckwheat flour). The second one is a baking ferment produced in Germany by a company named Sekowa. Both worked well. The baking ferment can deal with all kinds of glutenfree flours. A standard sourdough starter does not always do well when converted to other flours. Good luck to everybody, who tries.

Intermediate dough
It is a bit dangerous to work with a Brühstück. The boiling water gelatinizes the flour. If then the sourdough does not have enough rising power, the bread will be rather close to a road block. Inexperienced home bakers should better start with the cooked buckwheat or the Quellstück. On the other hand the Brühstück problem can easily be solved: add 1 tsp baking soda to the main dough.

In general the above suggested methods( sourdough + intermediate dough) intend to improve the water binding capacity of glutenfree flours. It is a general shortcoming of glutenfree flours that neither the proteins nor the starch does bind enough water to make a decent bread.

 

[nicklebleu]

Re: Buckwheat sourdough bread

Hi broken.english,

I am about to experiment with buckwheat sourdough myself.

What exactly is "baking ferment powder"? What's in there?

Thanks
Nick

 

[RyanX]

Re: Buckwheat sourdough bread

Very cool! Good to see somebody else attempting a gluten free sourdough bread. :D

Here was my attempt from awhile back: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12487.msg90188#msg90188

I never actually converted my starter to buckwheat flour. I'm a little worried to do so because the supply of buckwheat flour in this town isn't always stable. If I had to go without it for a period of time I might not have anything to feed my starter with. I converted a wheat sourdough culture to rice flour, since that tends to be in abundant supply. I've found that the rice sourdough will still rise with the buckwheat flour and other gluten-free flours as well.

My latest kick has been using the rice sourdough culture to make buckwheat crepes. The night before, I'll set out a bowl with 1C rice sourdough culture + 2.5C buckwheat flour + 2 cups distilled water + 1 tbsp organic sugar + 1 tsp salt. I mix this up and let it sit overnight. In the morning I add 2 beaten eggs, 1/3C fat/oil and then 1tsp baking soda. The sourdough culture turns the buckwheat batter acidic overnight and with the addition of baking soda, the bowl gets quite bubbly. This makes for nice and puffy buckwheat pancakes/crepes :D

I haven't tried the Brühstück method before. Does this help to keep the batter "sticky" in place of what gluten would do in most breads?

 

[broken.english]

Re: Buckwheat sourdough bread

Hi broken.english,

I am about to experiment with buckwheat sourdough myself.

What exactly is "baking ferment powder"? What's in there?

Thanks
Nick

Hi Nick,

The baking ferment is a natural sourdough starter grown on organic corn, peas and honey. That is the gluten free version, which I use. They also have a version with wheat.

In the first step one prepares a mother dough by adding water and glutenfree flour. This is ready within a day and can be kept in the fridge for weeks if not months.

When baking one adds an additional teaspoon of the ferment powder to the predough mixture as per my recipe above.
I found it quite easy and it never failed.

 

[broken.english]

Re: Buckwheat sourdough bread

Very cool! Good to see somebody else attempting a gluten free sourdough bread. :D

Here was my attempt from awhile back: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12487.msg90188#msg90188

I never actually converted my starter to buckwheat flour. I'm a little worried to do so because the supply of buckwheat flour in this town isn't always stable. If I had to go without it for a period of time I might not have anything to feed my starter with. I converted a wheat sourdough culture to rice flour, since that tends to be in abundant supply. I've found that the rice sourdough will still rise with the buckwheat flour and other gluten-free flours as well.

My latest kick has been using the rice sourdough culture to make buckwheat crepes. The night before, I'll set out a bowl with 1C rice sourdough culture + 2.5C buckwheat flour + 2 cups distilled water + 1 tbsp organic sugar + 1 tsp salt. I mix this up and let it sit overnight. In the morning I add 2 beaten eggs, 1/3C fat/oil and then 1tsp baking soda. The sourdough culture turns the buckwheat batter acidic overnight and with the addition of baking soda, the bowl gets quite bubbly. This makes for nice and puffy buckwheat pancakes/crepes :D

I haven't tried the Brühstück method before. Does this help to keep the batter "sticky" in place of what gluten would do in most breads?

Hi Ryan,

Nice pancake recipe! I will try it.

As for the Brühstück method you are right. It helps the buckwheat or other gluten free flours to absorb and bind water.

 

[glutenfreesourdoughbaker]

Re: Buckwheat sourdough bread

HI All,
I'm a newbie and came across the discussion about Buckwheat Sourdough Bread and wanted to share my gluten free sourdough starter with you all. _http://glutenfreesourdough.blogspot.com/search/label/Brown%20rice%20sourdough%20starter
I have been successfully making gluten free sourdough bread for 3 years. I started baking them to manage my own personal food allergies, gluten, dairy, eggs, yeast and soy. Lest you think I'm miserable, let me assure you, I eat well and I eat beautiful food every day. I started teaching bread baking classes so that others could learn.

I noticed Broken English uses Baking ferment powder. I think I'm using something similar, Water Kefir, which is a cultured drink. It gives a boost to the yeast and bacteria and prevents spoilage. One could also use kombucha tea, live yoghurt, whey or kefir milk. Before I used these boosters my starters use to spoil. Now they carry on nice and bubbly.

Looking forward to hearing more,
sharon, glutenfreesourdoughbaker