The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Toasting/Browning Flour and Gluten

wheatbreadco's picture
wheatbreadco

Toasting/Browning Flour and Gluten

Hi All, 

I am relatively new to the baking scene - been doing it for a little over 2 years now, using sourdough and my beloved starter as a spring board into other adventures. Those adventures have lead me to toying with flavors and ways to treat the wheat etc which brings me to the question.

I have been toying with the idea of browning my bread flour in a pan - no oils or butter or anything, just dry heat to toast the wheat before using it in my sourdough loaf. My question is this - will browning the wheat denature the gluten to the point where it will not rise and give me the fluffy crumb that I love so much?

I am interested to see if others have tried this and what were the results?

Thanks,

WBC 

Lazy Loafer's picture
Lazy Loafer

There has been a lot of previous discussion about such things here on TFL. Try searching to see what you come up with. Probably one of the most interesting threads about it is here. You can also search for scalds (roasting flour mixed with water in the oven until brown) and Tangzhong (a Japanese method using a roux of flour and water cooked together on the stovetop, then added to the dough).