Extracting gluten from regular flour

This is the result from the extraction of gluten from a regular packet of regular supermarket bought all purpose flour. Since it's hard to find pure gluten and strong bread flower here in Brasil, I'll use this to make doughs that call for more protein content than it's usually found in regular supermarket flowers, like Modernist Cuisine's pizza dough. It's also pretty cheap and easy to make. 100g of gluten from a 1Kg packet.

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Brendan_Lee_56950

What's the process?

Isaac_Moreira_4911

It's the process of making seitan. A "meat substitute" for vegetarians.

This is a video of the process. If you want only the gluten, you don't have to make a stock to flavour the Seitan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9vHa66Bm5E

You calculate the amount of gluten you will get from the protein content of the flour you use. It won't be exact but you will be close. You can't mesure it by weigting because it will be mixed with water.

Isaac_Moreira_4911

Now i'm facing the problem of how to incorporate this stuff back into the flower... The thing is super stretchy and rubbery... Any ideas? I'm thinking in dehydrating it but, in what temp? I'm alo thinking of freezing it and grating onto the flower... well, I guess I'll have to test it and let you guys know. Any ideas will be welcomed.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I would definitely dehydrate it. I would do it as quickly as possible so use the highest setting on the dehydrator. Usually the fruit setting in my experience.

Isaac_Moreira_4911

I think a high temp would cook the gluten... Does anyone knows in what temperature gluten cooks?

Isaac_Moreira_4911

Ok, so i just made a pizza (sun dried tomatoes, mozzarella and oregano) using all purpose flour and an addition of more 5% of gluten to the dough. The total protein percentage of the flour was 15%. I put the all purpose and the seitan inside the blender. The gluten didn't turned into a powder but into tiny balls. The knitting took care of incorporating the rest of the flour and seitan. I baked it on the top of a upside-down cast-iron pan and it turned out a great pizza for a first attempt, but far from what I was aiming for. First it was very dry (I guess I could fix this by inserting a pan of water to create some steam for the first stage of the cooking); second it had a sutil bread flavour. The texture of the crumb was ok: very elastic, but i felt it should be more. Sorry for the lack of pictures, i forgot to take

. Now I'm dehydrating the gluten at 60°C in my diy temperature controlled oven overnight. Tomorrow I'm making another pizza dough with a 20% gluten content with the dehydrated seitan which i'll grind to a powder.

Isaac_Moreira_4911

It's dry now but the thing is super hard and resistant. It's no brittle at all when dried. Grinding is really difficult. The grind is not good: the granules are really coarse. I will make another pizza dough today to see if the results are good. I suspect I will have to soak this thing for a few hours before putting inside the dough.

Isaac_Moreira_4911

Now that is a pizza! Thin crust mozzarella pizza. 10% gluten flour plus more 10% of dehydrated seitan making a 20% gluten flour. I mixed the dehydrated gluten powder directly into the flour and then added water, yeast, salt, sugar and olive oil and kneaded. I let the dough rest and rise for 30 minutes, and then I kneaded again and let it rest for more 30 minutes while the oven and the cast iron pan rose to 260°C. Once at 260, I opened the dough with a rolling pin to make it really thin and put the toppings: tomato sauce, mozzarella, dried oregano, olive oil and salt on the crust. Amazing. I was ready in just 5 minutes after entering the oven. I just wanted it to have a smoky flavour, so in the next one i will add smoked salt.

Dough (for 1 small individual pizza):

-5g of gluten;

-50g of 10% gluten flour;

-4g of olive oil;

-1g of dried yeast;

-0,5g of salt;

-1g of white sugar;