April 19, 2015 - 5:54am
Vital Wheat Gluten?
Does anybody use this? If so, when/how much? Pros/cons?
I've seen it in recipes as optional and was wonder if it is something to try perhaps with wholegrain.
TIA
Wendy
Share
Does anybody use this? If so, when/how much? Pros/cons?
I've seen it in recipes as optional and was wonder if it is something to try perhaps with wholegrain.
TIA
Wendy
Yup. If you want light whole grain bread in style of what you typically get in a North American grocery store, VWG is your ticket.
The only con in my experience is mild sense that "I'm cheating" when I use VWG.
So you do admit to using it...LOL
I used it once and didn't like the result but I'm trying to get the roll recipe from yesterday to be a little lighter and was wondering what the best form of attack would be.
Thanks,
wendy
I grind and use a lot of whole grains now a days. But, it is great for taking low protein flour and upping the protein so that it preforms better for bread - like bread flour does. It is a completely natural product made from wheat and Vegans use it as a meat substitute and get the missing protein in their diets - they call it seitan. The problem bakers run into is that they use too much of it for the purpose at hand. and it takes some basic math skills to get the right amount of VWG to add correct for each recipe
First off you have to know what kind of VWG you have. It is generally sold 2 ways 65% protein and 55% protein. Let's say we have the 65% version. If you have regular store bought AP flour at 10% protein and want to get it up to mimic bread flour,at say 12.5% which is plenty, and you are using 400 g of AP in the mix then some figuring is in order.
400 g at 2.5% (the amount you want to increase) would be 400 times .025 = 10 g of 100% VWG which we do not have. So to compensate you take the 10 g and divide it by 65% (.65 )the amount of protein in the VWG so 10 / .65 = 15.38 g.
But, this creates a small problem. You now have 40 + 10 =50 g of protein in a mix that now weighs 415 g with the added weight of the VWG, which works out to 50/415 = 12.05% protein not the 12.5% you wanted - you are still 2 grams short of protein. No worries just add 3-4 g of more VWG and you will be close enough. So if you ad 18-19 g of VWG to the 400 g of AP you will be right at 12.5% protein.
The other thing to remember is that most breads don't need really high protein bread flour.- it is just overkill many times.
Happy Baking
thorough and extremely helpful. I'm going to try this particular recipe with different flour first, then try the VWG if I don't get the desired results.
I do not have high protein flour available nearby, but I can get VWG. In my quest for a bagel that matches those I used to get in Westchester New York from where I moved a couple of years ago, I now use Hamelman's "Bagels" recipe. The recipe calls for 2 lbs of high gluten flour (14%?). I've not done the math on this (and I invite anyone who wants to to do so and post it in this string), but I use 1/3 cup of VWG then add enough bread flour to make the 2 lbs. The bagels I make have a crumb chew that matches those I used to get.
of your existing flour, but it doesn't make any difference if you recipe works and you like the bagels.
Happy Baking
I am wondering how it ever got the name VITAL wheat gluten,It seems to be a marketers dream when it is given such a prominent and commanding name come description that seems to be always used. To me it is just gluten, it is often a byproduct from the starch industry, we used to get it in as wet gluten in big mild brine tubs and then cut off chunks to add to the wholemeal doughs that were preferred to be light and airy for sandwich loaves. Vital Water might be more worthy of the title as you can't get a mix without it but you will get a dough with out the addition of VWG.
regards Derek
is made by making a dough ball of wheat flour and then gently washing all the starch awaywith water and what you are left with is either 55% or 65% gluten. here in the states When packed as chunks in water, you have instant seitan:-) or a way to get WW bread to puff itself up nicely!
It is called vital because the manufacturing process does not heat it to the point of denaturing the protein.
The process by which gluten is extracted is to mix flour and water together that develops or forms the gluten it is then kept under water and after a rest period the starch is washed out and the gluten remains. We used to do a gluten test to the strength of flours and no heat was required in the process.
Gluten Test
8 ozs FLOUR
4 3/4 OZS WATER
make into a suitable dough cover with water an allow to stand for 1 hour then wash the starch away from the gluten
2ozs wet gluten = weak flour
2 1/2ozs wet gluten medium flour
2 3/4ozs wet gluten = strong flour
Sorry thats in imperial ozs it does go back 50 years before decimalisation.
I think perhaps it should be considered that gluten is Vital in bread making flour to make a well risen loaf, the addition of the additional gluten is just that.
regards Derek
Here ia a quote from Principles of Cereal Science and Technology by Hoseney, pages 158 and 159:
“Vital is the term used in the industry to identify gluten that has not been denatured and thus has the ability to form a dough that will retain gas...Wheat gluten is valuable because of its vital character. Heating gluten, particularly after it has been hydrated, will denature the protein, making the gluten no longer vital and lowering its value considerably. Most gluten plants use a type of flash dryer that purports not to damage the gluten. The basic process is to extrude wet gluten into a stream of heated air containing previously dried gluten. The concept is that evaporating water will keep the product cool until it is dry. The theory is good; in practice, most of the vital wheat gluten on the market has lost a significant part of its vital character.”
This study
http://www.aaccnet.org/publications/cc/backissues/1980/Documents/Chem57_448.pdf
shows that VWG doesn't do much without egg yolk (lecithin).
the gluten in bread does nothing to raise bread without egg too since VWG is exactly the same as gluten? Something is amiss somewhere. Most of my bread has no egg or sugar or VWG and it but it seems to raise fine as does the bread with VWG and no sugar and egg.
but there are other compounds that make help to from gluten like gliadon. Gliadon is in the grain and released when milled. Maybe the lecithin acts similarly to gliadin. Dont quote me though. Would be great if anyone knew the function lecithin serves for added VWG powder and a formula for adding it precisely.