Several months ago, I bought some organic wholewheat flour and heritage flour from a local milling company. It was about time to level up and try making bread with different flour other than white baker’s flour. Here are some pictures of sourdough bread I made using that new flour. The fermentation was great since there was more nutrition from the whole grain yet the bread came out flat.
I then decided to adjust the recipe and see if I could improve the appearance of the bread. I dropped down the hydration and also tried to shorten the fermentation time. However, the results weren’t much different.
It has been said that to make sourdough or yeast bread in general, try to use flour that has a protein content of 13% or higher. The higher the protein level, the stronger the gluten network it has thus the better the oven spring and the opener bread crumb.
However, for me and maybe many of you, I just can’t get my hand on high protein content flour in my area. Or when I use whole grain flour or a mix of flour to make bread, the dough just seems lacking in strength during the bulk ferment and baking stage. And it ends up being flat after baking (see photos above).
Today, I’m going to reveal my secret weapon when such scenarios occur – Vital Wheat Gluten (wheat gluten/ gluten flour) and how to use it.
Before that, I’d like to share with you the results of adding extra gluten flour to my sourdough. Since I used a small amount of gluten flour in my baking, the outcomes are just marvelous. Here are the loaves I made using the same recipe, with the addition of gluten flour. These loaves have better oven springs and I can feel the strength of the dough when performing coil folds.
So What Is Vital Wheat Gluten?
Wheat gluten comes in powder form. It is made by hydrating flour, washing away everything but gluten and then drying the gluten and ground it into powder. When gluten flour is hydrated with liquid (water), it forms gluten again. Gluten flour improves both the rise of raw dough (oven spring) and the chewy texture of the final product. As this gluten flour is high in protein (about 5 times the gluten strength than normal flour), a little bit of this magic flour can go all the way.
How To Use Vital Wheat Gluten In My Sourdough Baking?
Simply add this gluten flour to the flour you normally use for making bread and continue the process as usual. For me, I start by adding 2% gluten to the total amount of flour and if I’m not happy with the outcome, I then increase 1% more. At work, we apply an additional 4% gluten powder to pizza dough (yeasted dough with 75% hydration) and the pizza comes out beautifully with an amazing chewy crust.
If the total amount of flour is 500g, I’ll add 2% * 500g = 10g gluten flour
Tips For Using Wheat Gluten
- with the more gluten flour you add, you may need to increase the hydration as this gluten flour will tighten the dough
- the mixing stage may be longer as the dough is tighter than usual dough
- perform coil folds for longer intervals (for instance, from 30 minutes to 45 minutes) because the dough needs a longer time to relax
- if doing autolyse, add gluten flour into flour and mix with water until a dough forms, rest for the desired time and continue as usual
At the end
If you have trouble finding the right flour or simply can’t get the oven spring right, give wheat gluten a try, it may be your savior. Happy baking!
