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Whole Wheat flour, high protein but low gluten?

BreadDoe's picture
BreadDoe

Whole Wheat flour, high protein but low gluten?

I am trying to mix a batch of 11% protein content with Bread, Cake and WW flours. The former's protein content are straight forward. However, I read it somewhere that WW flour, although high in protein, actually results in lower gluten because the bran will impede gluten forming. This brings up the question, in a protein to gluten approximation, what's the adjustment for WW flour?  What % should I assume for WW flour that is labeled 16% protein?  

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

"...although high in protein, actually results in lower gluten because the bran will impede gluten forming (correction)   takes up a larger portion of the flour and it contains more protein, protein that is not gluten.  

Look up Bran LINK and note the little diagram in the box to the right showing parts of the wheat berry and contents of  bran, endosperm and germ.  Compare.  Endosperm contains the gluten and the starch.

Not all protein is gluten but you can get some idea of how much is in the flour looking at the amount of fibre and other indicators of bran.  

Paragraph 11 of the following link... 

http://chestofbooks.com/food/science/Experimental-Cookery/The-Proteins-Of-Flour.html 

BreadDoe's picture
BreadDoe

Thank you so much for pointing out my misconception. I revisited the source where I got that idea, it turn out that what he said was WW produces "weaker" gluten, rather than less. Guess I'll leave out the WW for now, and experiment with just Bread and Cake flours of known protein content to see what texture I'll get. 

tgrayson's picture
tgrayson

Cake flour? If you're using bleached cake flour, all I can say is "yuck". It has a pronounced flavor that only tastes good in cake. If you're trying to lower the protein, use a pure starch like potato starch.

aroma's picture
aroma

....lower the protein of my white sourdough bread.  I aim for a mix of very strong 14.9% protein flour and 11.3% 'cake' flour to get a 12.5% flour.  This gives a nice soft crumb with good volume and the taste is lovely.