La Manzanilla Message Board: Re: Fresh sourdough bread

Good questions Ms. La Rose!

Unbleached white flour is unheard of in Mexico. Even the head chef at the culinary academy and prepatoria where I was teaching English last year had not heard of it.

My solution to this is that when I mix my dough (by hand), I use approximately 20% whole wheat flour in the mix. My bread is cold fermented in a refrigerator for a minimum of three days prior to proofing and baking. This long cold fermentation converts the gliadin to a form that most gluten sensitive people can eat with ill effect. Gliadin is one of two components that make up gluten, gliadin being the part that people have a reaction to.

There have been many studies on the benefits of long fermentation regarding wheat. I have posted to this board in the past some of these studies.

If you are interested in receiving the articles that I have compiled regarding this, email me or send me a private message and I will forward the information to you.

I started my sourdough starter maybe 10-14 years ago, the exact dates escape me. No secrets here, my bread is flour, water, salt and my sour dough starter, nothing more.

A higher percentage of whole wheat is possible in a bread batch, however, the problem is that with the super high humidity here it becomes increasingly more difficult to get the bread to rise as more whole wheat is added.