Vital wheat gluten is a concentrated wheat protein. If you hydrate wheat flour, thus activating the gluten, and then process the resulting mixture to remove everything but the gluten, you are left with vital wheat gluten. The flour that you use on a daily basis contains both gluten and starch. In vital wheat gluten the starches have all been washed away as part of the processing.
Vital Wheat Gluten is often used in a recipe to improve the chewiness of breads, especially when using whole wheat or rye flours. Adding a tablespoon or two can result in a superior loaf of bread. Another use for vital wheat gluten is to create a binder for mixtures that don’t hold together well. If you’re trying to make burgers from black beans or chickpeas, a bit of vital wheat gluten added to the mixture will help hold the patty together.
Long Term Storage of Vital Wheat Gluten
Vital wheat gluten possesses a shelf life of about 10 years when stored in a cool dry place in an air tight container. To maintain this shelf life it is crucial to keep it cool and dry. Failure to keep the vital wheat gluten dry will limit the time of its usefulness to a mere 6 months.
If you have some vital wheat gluten that is approaching the end of its predicted shelf life look for lumps and clumps that might form from the accumulation of moisture over time. Old and improperly stored vital wheat gluten is also susceptible to infestation by insects. Look for traces of eggs, waste, or exoskeletons as a sign of infestation. Finally, understand in advance what good vital wheat gluten smells like. Then when you open a container that is suspect, you will recognize when it is atypical.
How We Store It
Here at the Hot Needle Homestead we store vital wheat gluten for long term use in 5mm Mylar bags that we have vacuum sealed. We try to store items in packages that represent our short term use of the ingredient. A typical consumer bag of vital wheat gluten on amazon.com is 4 pounds. Our simple potato bread recipe uses 12 g of vital wheat gluten. So if we bake 1 loaf of bread a week, we will use about 300 grams of vital wheat gluten every 6 months. Add a bit for other projects that use the vital wheat gluten, e.g. pizza crusts, dinner rolls, garlic knots, etc…, and we try to repackage in approximately 400 gram quantities. This amount of wheat gluten fits quite well in a 1 quart gusseted Mylar bag. So a 4 pound bag from amazon.com gives me about 4 quarts and 1 pint of vital wheat protein for long term storage in my deep pantry.
Moisture Content
Commercial vital wheat gluten has a moisture content of about 6%. This is low enough to permit vacuum sealing of the ingredient. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer that handles fine powders well, you could also use an appropriately sized oxygen absorber.
Substitutions for Vital Wheat Gluten
There are no generally accepted and commonly available substitutes for vital wheat gluten that work as well. I’ve never used it, but I’ve been told that you can use 1/2 teaspoon of xanthin gum for every cup of flour your recipe calls for. The same 1/2 teaspoon of xanthin gum can be substituted for every tablespoon of vital wheat gluten in a recipe.
Other substitutes you may want to consider using are Guar Gum, Protein Powder, Eggs, Pregel Starch, Whey Protein, High Gluten Flour, Bread Flour. Your results may vary but there is a lot of anecdotal use of these on the internet.
Nutritional Notes
When it comes right down to it, vital wheat gluten is a protein. Balanced consumption of the three macronutrients (fats, carbohydrates, and proteins) is critical to a proper diet from your long term storage and deep pantry. The addition of vital wheat gluten to your baked goods is an easy way to add a bit of protein to an otherwise carbohydrate loaded food.
