Sourdough alterations...

This is what I get for reading about bread...after getting some information from The Fresh Loaf I was reading articles from SFBI's newsletter. There were articles related to the use of a true barm - soaking the whole grain flour in boiling water (essentially the same as the mash in whole grain brewing) for a period of time with diastatic malt (activating the enzymes) and thus releasing the sugars for yeasts to feed on. Now I'm going to divert for a minute - I don't think you can culture from this "mash". Yeast dies at 138-141 F. You're covering the flour in 212 F water...I haven't done the math (so I might be off) but just roughing it out in my head tells me the beasties died in the hot stuff. I did part of this experiment - I used 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 1 T rye flour in 6 ounces of boiling water. I then mixed in a couple of ounces of my starter. I will post on the results tomorrow. I can see where there would be more sugars available to the yeast from the soak. The protein structure has to change (you added heat...proteins denature on exposure to heat...ala scrambled eggs) This also, according to the article, will enable the bread to take higher hydration. I'll post on those results when they happen.