May 13, 2023 - 7:57pm
oat bran versus wheat bran re gluten
Lots of blather about which bran is best for you, oat or wheat, but what I had not realized was that oat and wheat bran are chemically quite different. Oat bran has no gluten. As in zero. Wheat bran has significant gluten. Now bran of any kind has less gluten than endosperm, so large amounts of bran are going to interfere with the rise. But wheat bran ought to allow for better rise than oat bran. Can anyone confirm this? I add wheat bran to regular bread flour for my sandwich loaves, giving me somewhat more bran than whole-wheat. Long ago, I used to use oat bran. Can't quite remember why I switched.
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Gluten in wheat bran does not make a fluffy tall loaf of bread because it does not necessarily come from a bread wheat cultivar to begin with. It just comes from any random wheat kernels.
Any bran will make a loaf smaller in volume, but big flakes of bran are worse than finely milled bran particles.
So, regardless of which bran you will use, wheat bran or oat bran, if you want your loaf to be taller and softer, either add vital wheat gluten to your bread flour or mill your bran in a coffee grinder or a blender into fine powder before adding it to your bread dough.