ok, ferment does degrade gluten but very slowly. Once the levels of lactic acid build up sufficiently, then the acid hits the gluten, but that is rather longer than 12hour. If the gluten is destroyed, then so is your dough structure—it loses the ability to trap air and steam. People struggling with ordinary bread but able to eat sourdough I think is rather common. Based on Monash publications, I would say the highly fermentable fructans in wheat are converted to easier to digest forms (mannitols??). Pretty testable for an individual. If you struggle with high fructan foods (wheat, onions, garlic) but happy with high mannitol foods, (sweet potatoes, mushrooms, melon), then I would predict you will be ok with sourdough (assuming my memory of what fructans convert to during ferment is correct). Sourdoughs with lots of low fructan flours such as oat and spelt should be even better.
As to adding flour later, then I was told by a baker that what is sold as white-flour sourdough breads can be made commercially by taking starter, maybe added to flour/water and partly fermented, but then add bakers yeast and rest of flour and process from there “normally”. The process is much faster, more mechanised and, importantly, predictable—ie cheaper. The ferment still gives a sourdough “tang” to the product to keep customer happy.
My son went to a bakery in a holiday town to get sourdough loaf for his IBS sister and quizzed baker on their process to ensure he was getting real thing. She offered him a job immediately (not that he wanted one).
You can lose some gluten and still have enough to maintain the structure of your dough. I think the person I mentioned thinks that’s what’s going on. (But it sure seems plausible to me that the actually relevant difference between sourdough bread and other bread is something else. If gluten degradation were the mechanism then you’d think you could do equally well by using weaker flour, not kneading as much, etc.)
I’ve made breads that are actually leavened with ordinary baker’s yeast but also contain some sourdough starter (in fact I have two loaves made that way sitting cooling on a rack right now), but it would never occur to me to call them sourdough breads. They’re ordinary yeasted breads with a bit of sourdough starter in to give flavour and longevity. But I guess if you’re selling bread, and your customers like the idea of sourdough bread, and you aren’t too scrupulous… :-)
If you google “what can legally be called a sourdough bread”, then I think you might see that this can be a problem.
But anyway, I think we can safely say that sourdough is probably a good way to test whether the issues are really gluten sensitivity, (because it certainly has some), or with other components of wheat.
ok, ferment does degrade gluten but very slowly. Once the levels of lactic acid build up sufficiently, then the acid hits the gluten, but that is rather longer than 12hour. If the gluten is destroyed, then so is your dough structure—it loses the ability to trap air and steam. People struggling with ordinary bread but able to eat sourdough I think is rather common. Based on Monash publications, I would say the highly fermentable fructans in wheat are converted to easier to digest forms (mannitols??). Pretty testable for an individual. If you struggle with high fructan foods (wheat, onions, garlic) but happy with high mannitol foods, (sweet potatoes, mushrooms, melon), then I would predict you will be ok with sourdough (assuming my memory of what fructans convert to during ferment is correct). Sourdoughs with lots of low fructan flours such as oat and spelt should be even better.
As to adding flour later, then I was told by a baker that what is sold as white-flour sourdough breads can be made commercially by taking starter, maybe added to flour/water and partly fermented, but then add bakers yeast and rest of flour and process from there “normally”. The process is much faster, more mechanised and, importantly, predictable—ie cheaper. The ferment still gives a sourdough “tang” to the product to keep customer happy.
My son went to a bakery in a holiday town to get sourdough loaf for his IBS sister and quizzed baker on their process to ensure he was getting real thing. She offered him a job immediately (not that he wanted one).
You can lose some gluten and still have enough to maintain the structure of your dough. I think the person I mentioned thinks that’s what’s going on. (But it sure seems plausible to me that the actually relevant difference between sourdough bread and other bread is something else. If gluten degradation were the mechanism then you’d think you could do equally well by using weaker flour, not kneading as much, etc.)
I’ve made breads that are actually leavened with ordinary baker’s yeast but also contain some sourdough starter (in fact I have two loaves made that way sitting cooling on a rack right now), but it would never occur to me to call them sourdough breads. They’re ordinary yeasted breads with a bit of sourdough starter in to give flavour and longevity. But I guess if you’re selling bread, and your customers like the idea of sourdough bread, and you aren’t too scrupulous… :-)
If you google “what can legally be called a sourdough bread”, then I think you might see that this can be a problem.
But anyway, I think we can safely say that sourdough is probably a good way to test whether the issues are really gluten sensitivity, (because it certainly has some), or with other components of wheat.
Also, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process. This is surely producing a bread with a rather different chemistry to more traditional processes.