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Is there some yeast or bacteria that will eat gluten? I was hoping for some kind of yeast, but I can't find one. Where could I look?

rumtscho
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  • Could you tell us why you are asking this? If you are hoping to make normal bread gluten-free by using such a yeast, this won't work for many reasons even if such a yeast exists, which I doubt. – rumtscho Sep 13 '13 at 20:19
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about biology or microbiology, and is not a culinary question. – SAJ14SAJ Sep 13 '13 at 20:25
  • Sometimes wild yeast starters will become proteolytic, but this isn't really desirable. They will begin to break down protein, but you can't really control which proteins are being broken down, and they become very "sharp", with a distinct acetone smell. – SourDoh Sep 13 '13 at 20:43
  • Actually, yeah, I was hoping to make gluten free bread. I know the gluten is a binding agent, but I was just curious. –  Sep 13 '13 at 20:49
  • White bean cookies taste just the same as wheat flour cookies. I have personally baked such cookies. You could also bake white bean+fruit bread, white bean banana bread. Pinto bean bread - http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12214/pinto-bean-bread. – Cynthia Sep 15 '13 at 15:01

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"How do I make gluten-free bread?" is a question that's answerable simply by searching for "gluten-free bread recipes". The key to those recipes is that they start from a gluten-free flour, and take some steps to ensure that there's enough structure to hold the bread together despite the lack of gluten. There's a bit of variety in gluten-free flours; the good ones are a mix of starches that work better in baking applications than an arbitrary gluten-free flour might.

If in contrast you tried to make gluten-free bread by starting with normal bread and destroying the gluten, you wouldn't have edible bread anymore. You'd have to add other things to create the structure, in which case you might as well just have started with gluten-free flour.

Cascabel
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Under certain conditions, some microorganisms used to make bread can digest proteins. This isn't desirable, as it will generate lots of off flavors and not properly leaven the dough. It is especially undesirable for gluten-free baking, as the organisms will digest protein indiscriminately, not targeting gluten. While, they may break down some of the gluten, they will not by any means remove all or even most of it from the finished product.

Edited to add: Here's a study where they did ferment the gluten out of flour, but it was durum wheat flour and they also had to use fungal proteases and a really long fermentation, then spray dry the resulting goop and re-mill it into flour.

SourDoh
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