How to make Bread Flour

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Homemade Bread Flour – When you’re out of bread flour you can make your own substitute with just 2 ingredients and following a no-fail formula!

I live and die by Bread Flour.  I easily have 100lbs of it on hand at any given moment.  I know it sounds like a lot but I do a TON of baking for home and commercial use so it makes sense.

I love bread.  No, really.  I LOVE bread.  I swear there is nothing better than a warm slice of freshly baked bread with butter and homemade preserves on it. This many-a-night has been dinner for me.

Bread Flour

Ingredients needed to make homemade bread flour

It’s just 2 ingredients:

  • American All-Purpose Flour
  • Vital Wheat Gluten

That’s it!  Nowadays most grocery stores carry the vital wheat gluten but if not, Amazon sells it.

As I mentioned this is for American All-Purpose flour as Canadian all-purpose flour is already had a high protein percentage similar to our bread flour.

What is Vital Wheat Gluten?

It’s the natural protein found in wheat. It’s found in the endosperm of the wheat berry. This, alone, contains 75-80% of the protein. What protein does in the dough helps with the elasticity of it, the rise (it’ll help it retain gas), and gives it more volume. Plus it helps give that ‘chew’ we love in say a crusty bread.

As you can tell on here I have a bunch of bread recipes that call for bread flour.  Well, not every home cook has bread flour on hand.  Just like cake flour and self rising flour, you buy it specifically for a single recipe and then it sits.  Why?  To me, that’s wasting money ESPECIALLY when you can make it yourself using All-Purpose flour.

Homemade Bread Flour

Not all American All-Purpose Flour is the same

Depending on what brand of AP flour you buy, the protein in it can vary from brand to brand. The percentage can range from 9-12%. Bread flour is anywhere from 11-14/15%

You REALLY need to check the bag of flour you buy as you’ll need to know the protein percentage of your flour in order to know how much vital wheat gluten to add!

I need to give a HUGE thanks to Robin who gave me one of the BEST formulas to help calculate how must Vital Wheat Gluten to add to your all-purpose flour.

Protein Percentage – what it is and what it is not

As I just mentioned, not all flour protein percentages are the same.

What it is NOT

The Protein Percentage is NOT the nutritional protein on the back of the flour bag (where you see calories and so forth). That is completely different.

What it IS

Normally the flour bag itself will say what protein percentage it is. For example, King Arthur All-Purpose Flour says on the bag that it is 11.7% protein content. THAT is the number you need for your formula.

If your brand of flour does not list it on the bag then contact the manufacturer or look on Google. Since there are hundreds of brands out there I cannot tell you your %. Keep in mind though, the average protein content is 9% for all purpose flour.

Bread Flour Formula

You have to use math but this will ensure you’re adding the right amount of vital wheat gluten to make your own bread flour.

(Average Bread Flour Protein – AP Flour protein) * 1% (recipe flour amount in grams) = Amount of Vital Wheat Gluten to add

Bread flour can vary in protein however a good one is 12% protein.

  1. Look at your bread recipe and, calculate in grams how much flour your recipe calls for.
    • My Hoagie Roll recipe calls for 448 grams of bread flour and the protein count (per the bag is 12%)
  2. AP Flour average is 9% protein
  3. Using the above formula, if I only had AP flour on hand I would use the following vital wheat gluten to add to my recipe
    • (12-9) *4.48 = 13.44 grams of Vital Wheat Gluten or 1 tablespoon plus 2.75 teaspoon

Making Bread Flour in Bulk

Many of you have asked if you can use this formula to transform a 5 pound or larger back of all-purpose flour into bread flour.

I do not recommend it and here’s why.

This formula is to use in a single recipe where it’s to make 1-2 loaves of bread, not for bulk processing or batch making. Scaling a recipe is not as simple as doubling the ingredients or timesing them by 10. It doesn’t that work that way. There are other calculations and factors that come into play.

Some know it as “Bakers Percentages”. That is not something I or this formula addresses.

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How to make Bread Flour

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Homemade Bread Flour – When you’re out of bread flour you can make your own substitute with just 2 ingredients and following a no-fail formula!

  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Total Time: 5 minutes
  • Yield: What your recipe calls for
  • Category: Baking
  • Method: mixing
  • Cuisine: baking

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Calculate the flour needed in your bread recipe to grams.
  2. Look at the bag of AP flour and see what the protein % is.
  3. Use THIS formula to calculate how much vital wheat gluten you need:
    1. (Average Bread Flour Protein – AP Flour protein) * 1% (recipe flour amount in grams) = Amount of Vital Wheat Gluten to add

Tough, huh? *wink*

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83 responses

  1. Jennifer

    To save space in my small kitchen, I buy APF and make my own bread flour. I’ve always done this based on quantity – 5g gluten to 120g flour (~1C bread flour), but knowing that protein content varies, I didn’t like the one-size-fits-all approach. When I noticed the protein content printed on a bag of flour I bought recently, the light bulb went on, and a quick search brought me to your helpful post. Thanks for sharing!



    Reply
    1. Lori

      You are most welcome Jennifer!

      Best Kitchen Wishes!

      Reply
  2. Virginia

    I have two huge bags of flour and after looking up the protein content it’s a range (UGH!!!). I’m guessing I just take the midpoint of the range then? the low ends are 9 and 9.5 the high ends are in the 13s.

    Reply
    1. TKWAdmin

      Without knowing who is the maker of the flour I can’t give you a suggestion on how to proceed. Did you contact the maker of your flour and ask them? Typically they have it on their website or their customer support should know this information.

      Best Kitchen Wishes!

      Reply
  3. Jenny

    Is the AP flour average always 9% protein? If not, how to get that 9%

    Reply
    1. TKWAdmin

      Every AP flour is different. If the bag doesn’t state explicitly what the protein % is (which is NOT what’s shown on the nutritional area), then contact the company and find out.

      Best Kitchen Wishes!

      Reply
  4. Edward

    Hi, I am a diabetic on a low carb ketogenic diet. Can I use vital wheat gluten with Almond flour to produce a less dense lower carb bread?

    Reply
    1. TKWAdmin

      Hi Edward,

      I’ve not tried it but from doing some research most have said that the only thing the VWG did was add a better taste to the loaf and give it a crispier crunch. It was still dense and heavy. I’ve seen lighter and fluffier low carb keto breads made with almond flour but those also are more brioche-like with a bunch of eggs in it.

      Best Kitchen Wishes!

      Reply
  5. Andy

    I’ve been baking for decades and thanks to Rose Levy Beranbaum, who introduced me in 1989 to weighing with grams.
    Due to the pandemic, I was finally able to find a 50lb bag of Gold Medal flour and the protein is 10.5%.
    My recipe for a Pullman loaf, using a poolish, calls for 600g of bread flour and 25g of whole wheat, so the vital wheat gluten would be 9g using AP flour. (I added in the WW flour as if it’s AP to get the 9g)
    Would King Arthur whole wheat flour, with 14% protein, affect the calculation or would the vital wheat gluten be needed at all?

    Reply
    1. TKWAdmin

      Hi Andy!

      I love Rose as she’s a master! I think because the addition is so little that it would not affect the VWG or overall protein count much, if at all.

      Best Kitchen Wishes!

      Reply
  6. Charlotte

    I used this to make bread flour for Pandan Milk bread, it was perfect. It came out light, airy, soft and sweet it was really good. Now I don’t have to worry about ruining bread flour due to leaving it in it’s original packaging; wasting food and money. I can now make bread flour anytime I need and not have to try to find it in stores. Thank you for the easy to use recipe. 🙂

    Reply
  7. Henry

    Good morning Lori,
    I was wondering if Vital Wheat gluten is the same thing as Wheat Flour????

    Reply
    1. TKWAdmin

      Hi Henry,

      No, it’s completely different products. Read the post section about what is VWG.

      Best Kitchen Wishes!

      Reply
  8. Michelle W

    Thank you for this post! I have a 50 lb bag of APF but quickly used up my 5 lb bag of bread flour. For bread baking, do I need to remove an equal amount of the APF for the amount of vital wheat gluten I’m adding?

    Reply
    1. TKWAdmin

      No – you’re adding VWG to the amount of APF that your recipe calls for. You don’t remove/replace.

      Best Kitchen Wishes!

      Reply
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