What is Vital Wheat Gluten?
Last Updated on March 8, 2024 – Originally Posted July 31, 2017
Do you have a wheat or rye bread recipe that didn’t turn out? Maybe the problem was that the recipe didn’t contain vital wheat gluten.
Many wheat bread recipes call for vital wheat gluten. While vital wheat gluten looks like flour, it’s not. Instead, it’s basically powdered gluten.
So what’s gluten?
Gluten is a type of protein found in flour. It adds strength to the flour and allows the bread to rise. Recipes with low-protein flours, like whole wheat or rye, typically call for the addition of vital wheat gluten. It improves the elasticity and rise of the dough.
Vital wheat gluten is made by combining flour with water to make dough. The dough is rinsed in water until the starch is removed and only the gluten remains. Then the gluten is dried and ground.
In the past, I found vital wheat gluten in the Bob’s Red Mill area of my grocery store. Now it’s more difficult to find. Recently I’ve ordered vital wheat gluten online from Amazon.
Using Vital Wheat Gluten with All-Purpose Flour for Bread Making
In times of scarcity, bread flour may not be available. I find that all-purpose flour is easier to obtain.
What’s the difference between bread flour and all-purpose flour? Gluten! That’s why vital wheat gluten is so handy.
In general, all-purpose flour has a gluten content of 9% to 12%. Bread flour typically has a gluten range of 10% to 13%.
Note the overlapping percentages. If you’re using all-purpose flour the first step is to try to determine the gluten percentage. Sometimes this is on the packaging. You can also visit the website of the manufacturer of the all-purpose flour. The gluten percentage of the flour may be there.
If the gluten percentage for the all-purpose flour isn’t listed or it gives a range, then make an experimental loaf of bread. The worst that will happen is that the bread won’t rise enough.
If your all-purpose flour doesn’t have enough gluten, you can fix that by using vital wheat gluten.
Add one teaspoon of vital wheat gluten per cup of flour. For example, if the recipe calls for 4 cups of bread flour then add 4 teaspoons of vital wheat gluten.
Note that you may need to experiment with the amount of vital wheat gluten needed.
Be sure to take a look at your dough a few minutes after it starts kneading. You may need to add a little extra liquid because of the vital wheat gluten.
Bread Machine Recipes Using Vital Wheat Gluten
In my experiment with VWG, I made a loaf of whole wheat bread and followed the recipe exactly as provided by the bread machine manufacturer, but I did add a single tablespoons of VWG. Apparently that small addition required additional water, just under a 1/4 cup, and the result of that caused the loaf to hit the top of the bread machine lid and required additional cleanup. In your answer to the previous comment you advised adding two tablespoon and removing a like amount of flour. But you did NOT indicate that additional water might be required. So, my question: is there an optimum conversion between VWG and bread flour such that recipe will yield the same size loaf without the the need to add more water?
Note: I realize that my comment comes a full two years after the publication of your post and this may be a problem in soliciting a response. No worries.
Blaine, thanks so much for your comment!
Yes, you’re right in that you may need to add more liquid because of the vital wheat gluten. I actually did have that in my article, but it wasn’t very prominent so I fixed that.
Your experience with VWG is very interesting. I’ve been added small amounts of VWG to bread recipes and haven’t had the change in bread size that you have.
Can you simply add vital wheat gluten to recipes containing wheat flour? If so, how much would you use and do you add additional fluid to the recipe? Thank you.
I’d experiment with adding two tablespoons of vital wheat gluten in place of two tablespoons of flour. Be sure to look at the dough after it’s been kneading for a few minutes to see if you need to add more liquid.
Omg, this is the first time I have seen gluten touted as a bread additive!
I make a multi grain bread that tends to be quite heavy, it took some research to figure out the problem… then more to find the solution.
Hopefully imagined health issues won’t deter the use of this product.