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Cereals and bread from Italy

Gluten-degraded wheat sourdough (2010s clinical product)

Wheat flour is fermented for a long time as a liquid sourdough with selected sourdough lactobacilli and the fungal proteases bakeries already use. Together they break gluten down to a few parts per million, and the dried flour has been baked into sweet goods that small groups of coeliac patients ate for 60 days with no harm measured. The authors say that is not enough to recommend them.

Fully documentedCereals and bread3 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe abstracts read do not give the strain mix or amounts; they describe the process and the residual gluten.
Wheat flour[rizzello2007][dicagno2010]
WaterFermented as a long-time liquid sourdough[rizzello2007]
Mixture of selected sourdough lactobacilli[rizzello2007]
Fungal proteases, of the kind routinely used in bakeries[dicagno2010]
Starterdefined culture (selected sourdough lactobacilli) plus fungal enzymes

Total time across the recorded steps: 3 days

Start
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What changes: Selected lactobacilli and fungal enzymes are stirred into a runny wheat dough

Step 1 of 4
Mix flour, water, lactobacilli and fungal proteases
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli

Output: liquid wheat dough.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Wheat flour is fermented for a long time as a liquid sourdough with selected sourdough lactobacilli and the fungal proteases bakeries already use. Together they break gluten down to a few parts per million, and the dried flour has been baked into sweet goods that small groups of coeliac patients ate for 60 days with no harm measured. The authors say that is not enough to recommend them. Made in 4 steps over 3 days. The longest step, ferment for a long time while gluten breaks down, takes 3 days (Rizzello C.G 2007) and runs at 37 °C (De Angelis M 2010). Selected sourdough lactobacilli whose peptidases (including PepN, PepX and PepO) break down the immunogenic gluten peptides does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step3 daysReported[rizzello2007][deangelis2010]Ferment for a long time while gluten breaks down
Temperature37 °CReported[deangelis2010]Ferment for a long time while gluten breaks down

What makes this one different

The aim is not flavour or rise but removing gluten. Selected lactobacilli and added fungal proteases work for a long time in a liquid dough until residual gluten falls to about 10 ppm by ELISA, low enough that the 2010 authors describe the flour as rendered gluten-free, before it is dried and baked.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fermented durum semolina pastaDurum semolina fermented 72 h at 37 °C with the lactobacilli to below 20 ppm gluten, freeze-dried and made into pasta.
  • Extensively hydrolysed flour (S1)A partly hydrolysed flour with 2,480 ppm residual gluten; not tolerated in the 2011 trial.

Safety

This is a research product, not a household ferment. The authors say these foods should not be recommended to people with coeliac disease until a formal trial has been done. In the 2011 trial, goods with 2,480 ppm residual gluten still damaged the gut of the two patients who ate them; only the five patients on the fully hydrolysed goods (8 ppm) showed no such damage.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Rizzello et al. 2007 showed the gluten breakdown; Di Cagno et al. 2010 ran a pilot challenge in eight coeliac children; Greco et al. 2011 ran a 60-day randomised challenge with three types of baked goods.

  1. [rizzello2007] Rizzello C.G., De Angelis M., Di Cagno R. et al. 2007, Highly efficient gluten degradation by lactobacilli and fungal proteases during food processing, new perspectives for celiac disease, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 73:4499–4507, doi:10.1128/AEM.00260-07 (abstract)paper
  2. [dicagno2010] Di Cagno R., Barbato M., Di Camillo C., Rizzello C.G., De Angelis M. et al. 2010, Gluten-free sourdough wheat baked goods appear safe for young celiac patients, a pilot study, Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition 51:777–783, doi:10.1097/MPG.0b013e3181f22ba4 (abstract)paper
  3. [greco2011] Greco L., Gobbetti M., Auricchio R. et al. 2011, Safety for patients with celiac disease of baked goods made of wheat flour hydrolyzed during food processing, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology 9:24–29, doi:10.1016/j.cgh.2010.09.025 (abstract)paper
  4. [deangelis2010] De Angelis M., Cassone A., Rizzello C.G. et al. 2010, Mechanism of degradation of immunogenic gluten epitopes from Triticum turgidum L. var. durum by sourdough lactobacilli and fungal proteases, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 76:508–518, doi:10.1128/AEM.01630-09 (abstract)paper