Gluten question on a Tuesday Morning
Hello all!
Quick question.
If you were to take a standard loaf of multi grain bread, yeast mixture, WW flour, salt, the basics and make two batches.
One with added gluten and one without added gluten, what would be the difference in the two breads most noticeably?
I just recieved an order of gear from plesant hill grains and I saw they had gluten there so I picked up a pack or two. Just not sure what the difference would be in the normal loaves I make.
I baked 6 loaves this weekend and they were awesome. 3 multi grain WW loaves and Jason's famous ciabatta which is always a show stopper! Great loaf of bread and very easy recipe to follow!
Any ideas on when you would use or not use the fancy new pack of gluten I have?
Thanks all!
Great site.
Newfie guy
The bread with the added gluten would be able to rise higher than that without the additional gluten. You would not have to use the gluten with bread flour, that already has sufficient gluten. Many people bake bread with the all-purpose flour and no additional gluten. Rye flour has no or very little gluten and a 100% rye loaf could be made lighter with the added gluten.
Ford
I will play with it this weekend and see if I can figure out the difference. I will make two batches, one with and one without. For a standard batch of dough for 3 loaves, how much gluten would be worth adding? I know this is very ball park?
So is it safe to say if a recipe calls for bread flour and you do not have it, you could grind some wheat berries with a grinder, add some gluten to it and you should have whole wheat bread flour?
Thanks!
Go easy on the addition of gluten. Whole wheat flour already has gluten -- even if you grind it yourself. Try one teaspoon of vital wheat gluten per cup of whole wheat flour.
To improve the dough using whole wheat flour, try soaking the whole wheat flour in your liquid for a hour or so at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. This will give the bran a chance to soak up the water and soften so it is not so likely to break the bubbles of gas in the dough as the bread rises.
Ford
This is the ratio I recall Reinhart mentioning in his WGB book (I'm away from home and don't have the book handy, sorry).
--Can anyone who has it look it up to confirm?
Too much gluten ruins the flavour and makes the texture kind of rubbery, I recall him saying.
It's best to use it for breads with less gluten, or for ones that really need the help and woudl be extra-dense and flat otherwise. E.g the one you suggest, with WW flour and lots of grains, that could use a little extra gluten to "lift" the weight of the grains, or rye breads that have less gluten than wheat flour.
But Ford's suggestion of soaking the flour overnight in the liquid (with about 1/3 of the recipe's salt--refrigerate if soaking longer that 24 hours) is a better way to help such breads along. Again, Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads has a good method for this.
into the dry flour and stir it up a bit before adding liquids to it. It tends to clump. Is it from China?
I do not have it in front of me so I am not sure where it is from but I will check it out. I will add some over the weekend and play with it! I already have a yeast enhancer I bought from the same shop and I put in a tablespoon or two of that in the bread I make so maybe it is the same thing - yeast enhancer and gluten? Probably has gluten in it somewhere.
I bought the yeast enhancer and have been using it but I also bought the gluten and have not opened the package so I am not sure which to use when I guess!
Thanks for the suggestions.
NG