autolysis in GF breads?
I've been making great strides in my wheat-free baking, but I am hoping someone here can answer this for me: do wheat-free breads benefit from an autolyse period?
I typically bulk ferment my breads in the fridge for at least few days before baking, which is I think essential to fully hydrating the flours and starches, getting better texture, and avoiding a "raw" taste. I also use sponges and water roux on some breads.
But what I can't find out is if a wheatless flour mix will benefit from an autolyse period, or if wheatless grains even have the enzymes necessary to make an autolyse period work. "Gluten Free Baking For Dummies" has a little sidebar saying that autolysis is the same for wheat-free breads as for wheaten breads, but has no more info about it, and I'm not impressed with that book in general, so I am not sure that can be trusted.
So, is an autolyse period something that will benefit a wheatless dough, or is it a waste of time?
Since the point of autolysis period is to speed up and simplify gluten developement, it would be utterly pointless in GF bread.
Well, what no one seems to know is if autolysis helps develop wheat-free flours in similar ways. Obviously, improved hydration can come from the bulk fermentation. But do wheatless flours even have the necessary enzymes for autolysis to improve structure and flavor? I wonder about these things.
I think that some autolysis helps to develop extra fermentation flavors but I have found that if it is too long that the starches degrade and cannot hold the gas bubbles. I don't have enough GF experience to know how long is too long so I would start with a shorter autolysis and go from there.
Autolyse on wheat-gluten bread will interact in these features:
1) Harsh granules of some flours, especially the whole ones decrease the gluten formation. So, the hydration of flour will moisture and soften the harsh granules so the gluten can develop better.
2) Protein bonds continue to develop as a consequence of the “water-rich” environment. This leads to a better gluten structure and gas retention.
3) Flour enzymes (mainly proteases) acquire time to adapt and work on the gluten by breaking down protein bonds, which encourages extensibility. Protease activity is higher at low pH (acidic conditions). This is why autolyzed doughs that contain yeast or pre-ferments (e.g. poolish) often experience greater protease activity. Such doughs are more extensible, weaker, softer and show less resistance to deformation than autolyzed non-fermented doughs.
4) And finally, the amylase enzymes turn the flour's starch into sugars that the yeast can consume.
On gluten-free bread as there’s lack of gliadin and glutenin (proteins that with water they unite to create gluten), points 1 and 2 don’t reflect on GF bread.
Talking about enzymes, I found that on rice flour there are some amylase enzymes, but no protease. So point 4 is the only one that could have some effects on GF bread.
In the end I can deduce that autolyze for gluten-free bread will develop more flavor by the interaction of amylase enzyme and some of the proteins present on gluten-free flour will be benefited by the hydration creating more structure and better volume on bread.