Dian57, here are my notes/instructions on making it that I had posted on another site. It is for 'wheat meat' 'seitan' or 'wheat gluten' as they are called interchangeably. I make it regularly. HOW TO MAKE SEITAN Using Vital gluten flour. I have made it with regular better for bread flour, but it is a lot more work, even too much for me.....but since they came out with the pure gluten flour I have been making seitan pretty regularly. Everybody around here likes it a lot, even more than tofu. Health food stores sell this flour, some upscale supermarkets, and also stores that sell products in bulk. It helps if you have made bread by hand before.... Take a big bowl (I use stainless steel). Put a bunch of gluten flour on it. Put a little salt in it (1/2 tsp per cup of flour is what I use) and mix well. Now get another person to pour water and very quickly knead it like bread until all the gluten is moistened. You have to work quickly, and the water pourer needs to be in synch with you, more water, stop, more water, etc.... If you do not have another person to help, you can start with the water and add gluten to it, this works too. Remember, knead it quickly to get all gluten moistened. Your hands will get sticky and messy, this is why a helper is nice.... If the dough has dark striations that is not so good, it means some of the gluten did not get enough contact with water. This is why you want to use enough water and knead. Keep kneading until all the water is absorbed. Honestly, the first time you do it might not work 100%, it does take a couple of trial and error sessions. If the gluten is too tough you can always grind it up and use it as a ground up meat substitute, so nothing is wasted. I did sausage (posted here) with a batch that was too tough because it did not get enough water. In any case, it should be a firm but not too hard dough. It will be hard to knead, harder than bread. So now you have a big lump of a dough and you are tired of kneading it....Cut it up wiht a sharp knife into chunks the size you want, but remember, they will double in size (at least double). Prepare a veggie broth. Last one I used a big (turkey? roast?) oval pan, black enamel with a cover that goes in the oven. I added: water, bay leaves, peppercorn, celery stalks, hot peppers (optional of course), shitake dried mushrooms, cilantro, powdered veggie broth, chopped onion, garlic cloves sliced it two, taste and see if it needs salt. Some people add ginger too, carrots can also go in. Bake in broth (all the pieces should be covered) for about 3 hours at 350F. The gluten/seitan chunks should have grown and they are now overflowing the pan. Just turn them around so they are moist. Now it can be used in any recipe that calls for seitan. I freeze most of it (squeeze some of the broth out if too wet), it does freeze very well, no change in taste or texture. Have fun with it!' You can also do this stove top by the way, I do prefer baking but both will work. One of my favorite things to do with this is make chimichurri from the garden herbs, marinate seitan in it and grill. They will work well marinated in many other things, and grilling is my favorite way to have seitan. Adding gluten flour to regular flour will increase its capability to add more to the expandable gluten network, that you made when you knead your dough. Sometimes other (non-wheat) flours cause a problem with this (not enough gluten so they are lumpy and hard, dense) so you can just use other flours you might have (rye, oats, quinoa, rice, corn...) and add gluten for the network that will rise and puff up. Will not work on gluten free diets, of course.

ak girl, you're right, I meant "home ground". I buy hard red spring wheat from Wheat Montana, GMO free and organic. Shambo, I think you have a good idea, I'll up the wheat flour a quarter cup at a time and see how far I can actually go. Ann T, I consider this a success, but still not what I'm looking for. Elery likes that chewy crust and soft interior, and this is definitely a sandwich loaf, not an "artisan" type bread. So, I try again... agmss, the real problem is that my prior two loaves didn't taste particularly good either. One was just.....bland. The other had a tablespoon of vinegar per a suggestion that adding acidity might help. It didn't help the rise and it tasted awful. Lemon juice was not an alternative because my mother is allergic to lemon and I often share my loaves with her. I had no ascorbic acid on hand, but I need to stock up on Vitamin C tablets for fruit canning, so that's a reminder for me. Annie

Annie - Yep, I'm gluten-free (3-years - gluten-intolerance, not celiac disease) but I still teach all kinds of classes, and do even more 1 on 1 mentoring through the Extension Office than classes these days (yeast and naturally-leavened bread, bread machine, grains and milling), just as I have for the past 25-years. I no longer judge foods at fairs due to gluten-intolerance, but I still train new judges. Even though I have eliminated gluten, I still mill my own flour when I make wheat-based baked goods (or other gluten-containing grains) for the rest of the family or visiting guests, as well as milling my own gluten-free flours from a variety of grains/seeds/beans. I just don't make 100% whole wheat bread nearly every week like I did before going gluten-free. I'm busy making all our gluten-free breads and baked goods now, as well as still developing sorghum recipes for a local mill. About your bread challenges.... These may be some reasons why you have so much trouble using home-milled flour. The type of wheat you purchased, the fineness of the milled flour (fine flour = fine bread - coarse flour = coarse bread), or failure to add an acid to the dough (1/8 t. ascorbic acid powder per loaf) to counteract the damage to the gluten from Glutathione found in wheat germ (which leads to short squatty loaves with a coarse grain). My panned loaves of enriched 100% whole wheat bread are as high-rising and nearly as fine a texture as white bread - but that didn't happen until I started using the sponge method and adding ascorbic acid. If you are using a straight dough method (best suited for white bread and light wheat using commercial bleached/unbleached flours - a more modern method designed for making bread quickly), instead of using an old-fashioned sponge method (which is best suited for wholegrain flours), that may be a contributing factor as well. Some of the heirloom wheat varieties, when freshly-milled into wholegrain flour, require 2-day processes for making good bread - usually due to the low amount of gluten in these old varieties. Remember, before the 1870's and the advent of hard red winter wheat being grown in Kansas, all wheat, and the milled flour, was from soft wheat varieties. So -- soft wheat can be used for making bread, it just won't be the high-rising loaves of bread made in an hour in a bread machine, and there are older technics used. I've also done tests for a mill that had hard winter wheat with a 16% protein level (which is very high), and you have to knead it nearly forever to get that much protein developed when using a straight dough method - but it's a cinch when you use a soaked flour method, and you need very little kneading. My knowledge is from years of training as a foods judge at fairs using judging standards for what characteristics are considered "best" for the baked goods being judged; and knowing the science after years of classes and study about wheat/flour, and other grains, and baking characteristics. You have to be equally as informed as to what is right as to what went wrong when you judge. It's not just about what "looks" good. These are also based on industry standards from restaurants to commercial bakeries. You probably won't see a pizza place using all-purpose flour, it's the wrong standard for pizza dough - BUT - you can make pizza dough with all-purpose flour - it's just not the optimum flour choice. Knowing the science really IS the difference between good and best when using judging standards. Personal preference aside. -Grainlady

If you decide to use bread flour, one of the tips for using high-protein flour is to add a little more fat - above the amount called for in the recipe. Where the additional fat coats the flour, it blocks the water from being absorbed, so it also reduces the amount of gluten that is developed. Be sure to keep mixing to a bare minimum. You could also use a blend of bread and cake flour and use the regular amount of fat in the recipe. I disagree with Linda about the protein content being "miniscule". There are more baking "mistakes" made by using the incorrect flour. High-protein flour gives you tough pastry, cookies, and cakes..... Hydration will be completely incorrect - as the chart below will show. Information from "CookWise" by Shirley O. Chorriher: Cake flour - 8 g. of protein per cup National Brand (Gold Medal, Pillsbury) Bleached All-Purpose - 9-10 g. of protein/cup National Brand Unbleached All-Purpose - 12+ g. protein per cup Northern Unbleached All-Purpose (King Arthur) - 13 g. protein per cup Bread Flour - 13-14 g. protein per cup ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The water absorption capacity of white flours for 1-cup of water to form a sticky dough ball in a food processor: 14 g. protein Bread Flour - 2-cups (packed) + 1 T. 13 g. protein Unbleached Flour - 2-cups (packed) + 2 T. water 12 g. protein All-purpose Flour - 2-1/4 c. 11 g. protein All-purpose Flour - 2-1/3 c. + 1 T. 10 g. protein All-purpose Flour - 2-1/2 c. 9 g. protein Southern All-purpose - 2-1/2 c. + 2 T. 8 g. cake flour - 2-3/4 c. -Grainlady