Cooking For Engineers

[dbmeyer2]

I enjoy baking bread with all types of flour. Buckwheat, rye, barley, whole wheat and so on. Gluten levels of flour is a key to bread making. All flour types have varying gluten levels. I have searched far and wide for a list of flours and their respective gluten content. If I had that at my side bread recipe development with alternate flours would be much easier.

Do you know of a list of flours which contains the corresponding gluten levels for each?

[Dilbert]

I've not seen a comprehensive chart either - but the info is available with a bit of surfing.

one problem to making "absolute truth" type statements is the variability of gluten in a "finished flour"

there are no "legal" / FDA / USDA type definitions to pastry/cake/AP/bread flour "names" - the gluten content of one mill/brand sold as "bread flour" may be another brand's "AP"

for wheat based flours, one can approximate the gluten content as about 80% of the protein content.

one also has to separate the question into "gluten free" and "gluten of some content"
for example, buckwheat is usually shown as "gluten free"

see:
http://www.wheat-free.org/wheat-free-flour.html
for an extended list of wheat free and gluten free "flours"

if you want to make a bread with a totally "gluten free" flour product, you'll need to go through some hoops.

rye, barley, whole wheat are usually cited as "low gluten"

it is not a good approach to make a "whole wheat" bread using 100% whole wheat flour - you get a brick. most recipes use a portion of rye/barley/whole wheat to "flavor" the bread. I never use more than 30% by weight of whole wheat, more typically 25% whole wheat by weigh to a bread flour.

it is also common practice to add "vital wheat gluten" to low gluten flours to produce an acceptable recipe. note that commercial products quite frequently use a host of (long chemical names here) as dough additives / conditioners when making breads from low gluten flours.

if you're using specialty flours, see:
http://www.germanfoodguide.com/flours.cfm
for some interesting insights.

[DejanSav]

Where can I find more informations about vital wheat gluten? Thanks

[dbmeyer2]

Thanks for reply. One of the links help a lot.

It is all in why I ask a question... I asked about gluten content so I could experimental with alternative flour. Your links helped, I found a bunch of recipes for low carb bread which most all call for the alternative flours I enjoy using. My wife is diabetic and I like the high fiber content and taste of hole grain flours. Most all low carb bread recipes fit the bill and are naturally low in gluten. BTW I think gluten is getting a bad rap excluding the folks with celiacs.