Favorite binders in GF baking?
So, what are your favorite binders in GF bread?
I have tried flax meal, psyllium, guar gum, WPI, konjac, gelatin, and of course eggs.
Psyllium is great but can make breads rubbery sometimes. I am not sure yet why the same recipe will be rubbery one time and fine the next. I think psyllium needs another binder to counter it.
Flax meal: not the strongest binder, but good mixed with others. Stronger binding powers when it is mixed with hot water before adding to other ingredients. Without this hot water stage, flax makes doughs very wet and sticky. I like the flavor component it adds.
Konjac- still getting used to it, it works very well in cookies and cakes but needs some help in breads.
Guar gum- pretty good for muffins, but makes yeast breads gummy and they tend to fall.
WPI: Works pretty well in conjunction with flax. I am still working out the right amounts: too much and you get a dry, tough bread, too little and you get a liquid. Soaks up a lot of water.
Eggs- not great for every application.
Gelatin: made a very strong bread dough, but limited the rise of the bread and created a dense, hard loaf.
Disclaimer: somewhat limited experience in GF. Maybe a dozen bakes.
Psyllium has some interesting characteristics that take a while to figure out. I'm still learning.
When I have used psyllium, I discovered that less is best. When I used too much, it made the bread gummy. That is what binders are supposed to do but it is the equivalent of adding too much thickener to the gravy-too much and you have gravy that jiggles like jello.
I also discovered that if I let the psyllium sit too long in a wet dough or liquid, the loaf got much more rubbery. I tried adding it to the liquid for a few minutes before adding it to the final dough, thinking it would perform better (like hydrating whole grain). Mistake! Changed the whole character of the dough-not enough liquid available to the flour (dryer dough) and the final loaf was very rubbery and crumbly.
One of the resource people I was researching at the time swore by a mix of flax and psyillium.But not much in the overall bakers percentages.
Another thing about psyllium ( and probably anything used as a binder) is it also depends on how fine it is ground. I have seen psyllium come whole, crushed, medium ground and fine ground. The finer the grind, the less you need.
So keep playing and have delicious fun!
PS-What is WPI?
I always let my doughs bulk ferment in the fridge overnight. It makes a more firm dough. GF doughs need more time to hydrate and to "gel". A long bulk fermentation makes most GF doughs into doughs rather than batters.
If you find your doughs are too dry/crumbly when you let them ferment a long time, I would try using less psyllium. I use it ground.
WPI is whey protein isolate.
Whey Protein Isolate-You answered this question (that I asked) in another post. I knew it sounded familiar but I just couldn't remember what it stood for. Thank you for patience.
Interesting to heat that the GF dough as a whole acts like a whole grain in that it benefits from a long, slow, absorption of the fluids. The key seems to be that the binders, in particular, need a long, slow, EVEN absorption time. When trying to hydrate them by themselves, they seems to really get gummy and they can absorb an enormous amount of water all by themselves. That was my mistake with that batch. The flours did not get a chance to hydrate well and the resulting loaf became crumbly even immediately after baking.
I use overnight, cold retard for my whole grains and it works well. I will keep that in mind for GF.
Pictures would be interesting-even if you don't feel they are ideal. I learn a lot from pics. It also gives the baker a time to think about and explain what they think is happening. I really think/analyze a lot when I am trying to explain my loaf to someone else. That is when I learn a lot.
WPI can also stand for wheat protein isolate...VERY HIGH in gluten.
I pretty much either just use Xanthan (in GF pastries) or Xanthan+Guar in GF breads. X+G supposedly have synergistic properties together -- although I've never really tested "scientifically" if that is true or not. If I have a long-rise GF bread (meaning rising over several days in the fridge) I just use Xanthan because I believe it has better low temperature characteristics -- I need the dough to hold together while it rises in the fridge. I've tried psyllium but it always fails in baking for me, because I guess I don't know how to use it. I've done boiling water thickening tests to find equivalent thickening quantities, but I still can't get it to work -- not that I've spent a huge amount of time on it.
I've also tried a bit of recent experiments using Pregelatinized Tapioca -- Tapioca flour which has been pre-thickened in hot, nearly boiling water, before being added to breads. This results in a goo that when added to the other GF flours gives you something you can work almost like regular bread dough. So far I've always used it in conjunction with Xanthan -- but I haven't fully worked out this recipe yet