Methocel

Not sure where to post this, but here goes.

As I need to bake gluten-free, I am often experimenting with gums and items to add that necessary "stickiness" to bread the is missing without gluten. I most often use a mix of guar and xanthan gums. I have used gelatins, pectins (dry and from actual fruit), and a new modified starch called Expandex.

One that I want to try (and even have) is called Methocel. It's a Dow product. I've contacted them for help, but what I have received is at best suited for a professional kitchen and then is mostly marketing hype.

I've gleaned that it's a bit tricky to work with and that there are multiple formulas; beyond that I don't know any details. I posted on eGullet asking about it after I saw an old thread in which it was discussed, but didn't get any responses.

If anyone has any experience working with this gum, please let me know. I'd like to know how much to use, temperature needed, if it needs to be mixed with water before adding to bread, if it works best in conjunction with another gum, etc.

Thanks!

I have experience using methylcellulose in experimental dishes, but not with baking. Google it with that spelling or methyl cellulose - you'll find a number of bread and other baking recipes to help you. And absolutely yes, you need to hydrate it correctly before mixing.

I never cease to learn new things on this forum. I use Methyl cellulose as an adhesive in my work and I knew it was the thickener McDonald's uses in shakes but until this minute, it never occurred to me that a home cook might use it.

I know mail order sources for it but I can't tell you if what I use is food grade. Here's one source methyl cellulose

Thanks for trying to help. Funny how ingredients like this have multiple uses.

I already do have it - I got it at least two years ago and despite my attempts to figure it out - including many hours of searching on multiple spelling and experimenting on my own, I've not had success.

I'm really looking for someone who has experience with it and can give me some quick pointers. I'm not being obstinate in that I won't do my own searches - I've done hundreds of them, spending hours reading everything that I can find. It's either not in home kitchen speak, or it doesn't tell the crucial info of what to do with it and how much to use. Dow sent me a recipe for a commercial kitchen....for making like a thousand loaves and written in percents....while I do weigh my ingredients, I couldn't make heads or tails of their formula.

ViewsAskew wrote:It's either not in home kitchen speak, or it doesn't tell the crucial info of what to do with it and how much to use. Dow sent me a recipe for a commercial kitchen....for making like a thousand loaves and written in percents....while I do weigh my ingredients, I couldn't make heads or tails of their formula.

Why not post it here? Maybe somebody with commercial kitchen experience can translate.

Thanks for keeping this alive, LAZ. I really am stumped and have searched so much in the past, I just haven't much idea of what else to do.

This is one that Dow sent that is listed in percents - I haven't a clue as to how recipes in percents work - by total weight of raw ingredients? How do you get a starting point - just decide, say, that I want a 2 pound loaf and work backwords?

Rice flour, 43.70 precent
Water, 45 degrees F, 40 precent
Sugar, 4 percent
Tapioca starch, 3 percent
Corn starch, 3 percent
Soybean oil, 3 percent
Methocel K4M, 1.4 percent
Salt, 1 percent
Active dry yeast, .90 percent
Total, 100 percent.

For mixing, they have you use a paddle and mix all dry together except yeast.

Add yeast into water (isn't 45 degrees a bit cold for yeast to rehydrate?)

Then add rest of wet into dry, including yeast/water. Beat, shape, rise, bake.

What's odd to me is that the Methocel is not treated in any special way, other than the water is very cold for normal yeast bread. That's why I'd love to know more about the temps required for using Methocel specifically. I wouldn't use this recipe, per se, rather I want to use it in recipes I develop. Just need the basic rules....

Views,
I can't say 100%, having never worked with recipes this way, but it is most certainly percent by weight.

Judging from a few bread recipes in the King Arthur Flour Baking Companion, about 12-15oz of flour makes a 9x5" loaf. Since 15oz gives you 425gm, the easiest conversion for you would be 10gm for each percent of ingredients. You could go back to ounces by dividng by 28.35, but if you've got a digital scale, it should do grams.

Round to convenient amounts --- which will probably but not definitely work:
Rice Flour: 15 oz (by weight -- don't try to use volume for flour, it varies a lot)
Water: 1 1/2 cups plus 3 tbs
Sugar: 3Tbs (sugar and starches are less dense than water)
Tapioca Starch: 3 Tbs (this is violating the above rule, you're only talking small quantities here)
Corn Starch: 3 Tbs
Soybean Oil: 2 Tbs
Methocel K4M: 14 gm -- should be 2 Tbs (half the density of water)
Salt: 1 tsp (salt has a little more than twice the density of water)
Yeast: 2 tsp

Resource: Bulk Density Chart

My best guess on the temperature is that they meant to say 45 degrees Celsius, which comes out to 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or about the right temperature for yeast.

Thanks, Joel. I weigh all my ingredients when I develop recipes, especially as I use so many flours in gluten free baking. But, I hadn't a clue as to how to get to a starting point. I would have used a higher amount, I think, and had too much.

Ann, good call on the F vs C. They used F throughout the text, so I assumed that's what they meant.

It's still odd to me that the Methocel isn't treated in a particular way. In some of the threads and pages I've found about it in general, it seemed that it did need a specific temp or it wouldn't work right.

I have tried simply adding it to two or three loaves, but it didn't seem to work well--but maybe volume was the problem. If Joel's calculations are right, I didn't use nearly enough of it. I typically use about 1 teaspoon per cup of flour (about 2.5 to 3 teaspoons per loaf of bread) when I use guar or xanthan.

Given the cost of it, and given that it seems that you need to use about double the amount of other gums, maybe this is why it's not used nearly as much as guar or xanthan. My hope wasn't so much to replace the other gums, but to hope that mixing them together would produce a bread that stayed together better.