Whole wheat bread experiment - vital wheat gluten
First off, I mill my own flour. So I'm always messing around with whole wheat recipes. This time I was trying to improve the nutrition of my bread with ingredients I had on hand. While going through my list of ingredients that I had I came across some Vital Wheat Gluten by Bob's Red Mill. I looked up the instructions and settled on using two tablespoons on a recipe that has about 5 cups of flour for two loaves. I thought this would be a conservative amount. I also checked out some info here at TFL on the vital wheat gluten. I also found some baker's dry milk so I used some of that. Here's my recipe as it stands, it's a work in progress:
white whole wheat flour 55% 13 ounces
red whole wheat flour 45% 10.65 ounces
water 68% 16.25 - 16.50 ounces
nfd/baker's milk 11.5% 2.7 ounces
vital wheat gluten 3.4% .0.8 ounce
yeast 1.5% 0.35 ounce
salt 1.3% 0.3 ounce
butter 6.4% 1.5 ounces
If the percentages do not calculate, use the weights, those are real.
I mixed and kneaded all but the salt and butter. As I neared the end of adding the flour, I tweaked the water a bit until I was satisfied with the feel of the dough. I let it rest twenty minutes and then kneaded in the salt and softened pats of butter. When this was in I put the dough into a dough bucket to rise to double. It did this in an hour or less. My house was about 75F. Then I divided, shaped and placed the dough into two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pans. This rise was about 45 minutes and then into a pre-heated 375F oven for 35 minutes. I tented the loaves with foil the last ten minutes.
So. It rose nicely but oven spring was a bit less than usual. Upon cooling and slicing I find the bread to be a bit chewier than expected. The flavor is somewhat pronounced and just ever so slightly bitter. Not a bad loaf. It's perfectly usable bread for my day to day lunches but I feel the recipe needs work.
Conclusions:
Rise was nice so yeast is sufficient or more so. Perhaps a bit of reduction is in order.
Vital Wheat Gluten - the loaf is chewier. Did I use too much VWG? Did I under knead it? I did notice the dough being a bit firmer than usual but I normally cut my bread with a bit of AP or bread flour. I attributed it to the 100% whole wheat. Perhaps it was the VWG.
Flavor - Various suggestions come to mind. Perhaps increasing the ratio of white whole wheat to red? I'm trying to keep the bread sugar free.
NFD milk - I don't know what this did. Help the rise? Affect the flavor? I just don't know. Was 1/2 cup enough for two loaves?
I know there are good recipes out there for whole wheat and I have used several. I'm just experimenting here so if anyone has suggestions as to how I might proceed, feel free to comment. My goal is soft textured and mild tasting sandwich bread. I already have tried and true recipes for chewy breads or softer ones using less than 100% whole wheat. I was also trying to keep it simple. I admit, this ones a bit more complex than my usual few ingredients. Besides, I like experimenting.
One last note. While I do make breads using an overnight pre-ferment, soaker, sourdough or things like that, my sandwich bread is normally a single day affair. I only get one full day off at a time from work so I have to plan well ahead for complex breads.
I use VWG only in doughs that have little gluten, like whole rye breads (Vollkornbrot).
Wheat flour contains plenty of gluten, more is really not necessary. The non-fat dry milk adds protein and makes the dough softer, it doesn't contribute any flavor.
Your nice whole wheat loaf has plenty of nutrients, if you want to spruce it up more, you could try adding some seeds or nuts.
Happy Baking,
Karin
To be honest, I had it on hand and needed an excuse to use it. Since 100% whole wheat doesn't seem to rise as well I figured it would give it a boost.
Speaking of rye, I've had a hankering lately for a patty-melt. I need to go through my books for a good rye bread that is just begging for a burger, some cheese and carmelized onions to be toasted with it. Probably a deli-rye type recipe. I have plenty of rye berries on hand.
In terms of nutrients, I was thinking of garbanzo bean flour in the not too distant future. I'd probably end up with something like Cornell bread.
What kinds of seeds come to mind? Nuts are a bit expensive for me right now. Plus they are hard to get in my rural area.
Check this out - a great rye bread for sandwiches, my customers love it: Rheinisches Schwarzbrot - Rhineland Rye.
I often add toasted sunflower oder pumpkin seeds to my breads. Or sesame.
Karin
That's a recipe. I'll have to study it and see how I can fit it into my schedule. I do have rye flakes on hand. I've printed off the recipe for further study.
Sunflower and pumpkin seeds are hard to come by. There is a Walmart and one other supermarket in town. Most of the sunflower seeds I see are the salted kind.
Thank you for the recipe.
Mike
is like a day without sunshine.
The caraway rye is the Jewish-American version, in Germany rye breads like the Rheinisches Schwarzbrot or Vollkornbrot are not seasoned with caraway.
There are caraway breads in Germany, but those are usually made with white flour or a wheat/rye mix.
Karin
I've found your recipes for the Rheinisches and Friesisches Schwarzbrot. Both are nice and appear to be dense and hearty breads. I've seen Volkornbrot listed in either the Hamelman or Reinhart book(s) or both. It appears to be a special occasion bread. In Laurel's book it is a six day bread (to make).
I know that the deli rye/Jewish rye is a completely different type of bread. It was about the only type of rye I knew as a child except for one encounter with a very dark dense bread the restaurant called pumpernickel.
There are so many different breads that can be made. I've made several but I've only scratched the surface. My biggest problem is what to do with them. My wife and I can only eat so much bread. For sharing with co-workers, I only need a single loaf.
Thanks for the tips and the recipes. I'll post a picture when I make the bread.
Mike
why I started selling my breads!
When my husband and my freezer couldn't cope with my bread production anymore, I had to do something about the surplus :)
Karin
Don't remember the general rule of thumb for adding VWG as recommended by the manufacturer, but yes, I'd say you added quite a good deal above what your recipe could have used. For one thing, both flours involved contain adequate amounts of gluten all by themselves, and there are no additional quantities of non-glutenous solids other than the NFDM (which is almost trivial) that would call for the VWG as a baking aid. This natural additive will make your bread more chewy, if that's what you want. Great for bagels, which one might excuse for being a bit rubbery (after all, they do resemble inner tubes.) Don't get me wrong, I use VWG myself in practically all my recipes. But a little goes a long way. One teaspoon per pound of non-glutenous solids might well be the limit — various brands differ in protein content, so I've heard. Am currently digging my way through a bag of Bob's Red Mill as well, and find it to be super strong. Throw a heaping teaspoon of it into my mixer along with all the other ingredients of a two pound recipe, knead the dough real good, and out comes Silly Putty.
I will most likely save my VWG for low-gluten breads such as rye and other grains. I have some spelt and emmer to play with and these might need it. I'll have to look at the recipe when it comes up. I've not needed it with spelt yet. I appreciate the advice you and Karin offered. I need to think it through a bit better next time.
With a little more VWG, he could have made Mock Duck meat substitute!
On the bag they give a whole wheat bread recipe using 4.5 cups of flour and 2 Tbsp of VWG. I had more flour than that. Most instructions I saw said up to 1 Tbsp per cup of flour. I used one Tbsp per loaf. Oh well, lesson learned. I just hope I don't forget it.
Yes, but then that is a recipe for honey oatmeal bread, plus it contains a couple ounces oil which along with the two cups milk, would soften the loaf too. Still the 2Tb VWG called for seems like a lot to me; notice though the instructions call for it to be added by hand along with the oats after the whole wheat dough has gone through a mixer. Guess it doesn't get too developed that way; haven't tried that recipe myself.
Sounds like you are on the right track now anyway. Happy baking!
they go so well together! Complement each other well in flavour and dough feel. Don't use VWG myself. Don't need to. Emmer too! These are great mixed into doughs for nutty flavours. The emmer has a natural sweetness. Other do to when soaked.
When I first got my rye berries and flakes I was gung ho. I even made hot rye cereal for breakfast on my day off. This involved boiling the rye flakes much like oatmeal. Well, I added honey, butter and milk to mine, while my wife just added some raisins. We both liked it. I had mine and forgot about it.
Well, when she got home she was a bit upset with me. She said I should have told her it was a laxative. How was I to know it would do this to some people? Anyway, since then I have to make rye things in small quantities. She won't go near it. Luckily I can share it with work. I don't mind it if the extra fiber bothers them.
Do you have a good spelt and rye recipe? Or perhaps know of a good one in a book? I have several bread books. I'll give them a look.
Never mind. That's certainly news to me and I live in a Rye country! Well, you could just toss in 5% into the bread and it improves flavour along with some spelt and see if it's tolerated. I think she might have eaten more than one portion of vollkorn and yes, too much 100% rye with lots of grain and flakes might have been the problem. Try milling it and blending it. Rye is good gut flora food. :)
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/20/jn.109.118570.full.pdf
Also says that buttermilk can relieve gas and bloating. Interesting...
She says she will try a rye bread but not on a workday. She doesn't trust it. We'll see how it goes.
pmiker, welcome to the home ground club. There are some that say you must use VWG or you won't get much lift, others say that VWG doesn't improve the rise, but gives you a longer window before the dough collapses http://www.amazon.com/Bricks-Successful-Whole-Grain-Bread/dp/061525330X, others suggest adding vitamin C, and yet others just go without any additives. I have been wandering around - lately I like adding a little Vitamin C - I made 2 loaves, 1 with and 1 without and noticed no difference in taste, but the Vit C loaf seemed a little lighter. Since you are doing home grinding, another thing you might want to try is sprouting some of your grains, then drying them, and then grinding them. IMO, they add a great flavor to your bread - though I find if I go much above 40% sprouted flour, the loaf tends to collapse as it bakes and then cools. Even when it collapses, it still has a great flavor - at least the white berries do, I don't know why but I didn't like the sprouted red berries as much.
generally I add 3% gluten only to very weak soft wheat flours (8-9% proteins), so as you guessed yourself 3.4% was an outrageous amount of added gluten. Moreover the more gluten you add the longer you will have to knead because proteins need a lot of energy to disantangle and rebind to one another.
If you mill american wheat most likely you already have all the gluten you need, so you just need to strengthen your dough. You could try adding 200-300 mg of pure vitamin C per 1 kg flour, dissolved in the water. Vit C maximizes gluten formation and permits much longer proofing times and more massive oven spring (thus much lighter crumb).
If that doesn't work as you wish you could consider adding back 1% VWG, but before adding it I recommend you try to optimize the resources you already have of you'll experience gumminess.
(as a side note I always use only vit C, except in the most pathological cases).
as well as things like lecithin. I've never used either. I'm not even sure where to get it locally. The pharmacy?
I will be using vwg only with low gluten flours as has been suggested.
and various online sellers. Be sure to take the pure L-ascorbic acid. Very often it's mixed with citric acid and other eccipients that interact with gluten in other subtle ways.
Lecithin helps a lot, too, but it acts very differently, making gluten more extensible.
is Vitamin C in a form designed for food application.
Here in the States, BF already contains minute amounts of it (dough conditioner, or ascorbic acid) but in such minute amounts, the Vitamin C content on the nutrition label reads 0%.
Happy baking!