Vital Wheat Gluten

I was thinking of making King Arthur Flour's Millet Sunflower Bread but I noticed vital wheat gluten in the ingredients. It's only 2 tb for 1 loaf. What is this stuff, and is it necessary? What would happen if I left it out?

Based on its name alone, I'd guess that vital wheat gluten is pretty darn important; integral, essential, perhaps even crucial.

To be sure though, I googled it. Basically, it's powdered gluten. According to King Arthur Flour, it "provides the extra gluten that whole-grain loaves need to rise their highest. It's particularly helpful with loaves that have low-gluten whole grain flours, such as rye, oat, teff, spelt, or buckwheat."

Hope this helps,
--Rich

I bought a whole case of it from Amazon for making the soft rye bread described in this article:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/1191 ... sandwiches

RAB wrote:Based on its name alone, I'd guess that vital wheat gluten is pretty darn important; integral, essential, perhaps even crucial.

To be sure though, I googled it. Basically, it's powdered gluten. According to King Arthur Flour, it "provides the extra gluten that whole-grain loaves need to rise their highest. It's particularly helpful with loaves that have low-gluten whole grain flours, such as rye, oat, teff, spelt, or buckwheat."

Hope this helps,
--Rich

Exactly right. The bread will be more dense if you omit it. Not bad, just more dense. In any case, it is inexpensive. Whole Foods sells it. I'm pretty sure they have it in the bulk food section (at least at the larger stores), so you can buy as little as you need. Larger boxes are in the baking isle.