Hi To Everyone.

[jhmichael25]

Hi,

I am from Sydney Australia.

I have just come across to this website today, I've read few posts and I can see the potential of it in sharing knowledge, experience and pain as well to each other. That's good.

Well, I found out by myself that I too suffer from celiac disease just recently, in fact on the 18Th of Dec 2007. I guess I have being suffering from it for at least 5 years, but could be more. No Doctor could tell me what was the cause of my sinus headache and all the suffering that comes along with.

By searching on the Internet and reading so many treads about in different forums I came to the conclusion that I too suffer from this dreadful disease.

From the 19Th of Dec 2007 I became a gluten free eater. Since then I got sick twice for eating a gluten food thinking it wasn't glutenned.

I have learnt that gluten is a kind of protein mainly in wheat, but also present in another 3 grains. The thing which fascinated me the most is that a very tiny quantity of gluten is enough to trigger the headache and all the pain that it brings along as well.

On this aspect alone I am very curious now. My curiosity is this: How much gluten is there in 1kg of pure wheat? When gluten is isolated from the wheat, how does it look like, I mean does it look like as a solid, liquid or what? Do you know the technological process from isolating gluten from wheat?

If those kind of questions don't fit in to this forum let me apologise quickly and please guide me to the right place.

Thanks for your comments.

jhmichael25

[MNBeth]

Welcome to the board!

I'm no scientist, so I can't tell you a thing about how they isolate the protein from the other components of wheat flour.

Being something of a home-baked kitchen chemist, though, I can tell you a little about the protein content of flour. Protein content will vary between types of flours and even from batch to batch of similar type flours. For example, cake flour has a very low protein content - something like 8%. That's why it's good for cake - it keeps it from getting tough.

All-purpose flour will range from about 9-12% protein; in the US, the most popular mainstream AP flours are about 10.5 %.

Bread flour is higher still, ranging from 12-15% protein, which gives the bread it's stretch and chewiness.

I used to buy something called "vital wheat gluten" for bread making that was mostly, if not exclusively, wheat protein. It looked a lot like flour, though a little darker. But if you got it wet it would get extremely gummy and be difficult to wash off/out. I learned not to wipe it up with a dishcloth if I spilled it on the counter or I'd never get it out of the cloth!

Probably there's a lot more you'd like to know, but hopefully that's a beginning for you.

Again, welcome to the community!

Beth

[jhmichael25]

Hi Beth,

Your contribution has been great and I have much appreciated.

That is actually a good start for me. Now I have a BASIC idea how much of gluten there is on baking flours or wheat flour and how it looks alike. Oh, it sounds like very sticking, no wonder it can damage the villae of our small intestine.

Thank you for your contribution, and I wish you a happy new year.

Welcome to the board!

I'm no scientist, so I can't tell you a thing about how they isolate the protein from the other components of wheat flour.

Being something of a home-baked kitchen chemist, though, I can tell you a little about the protein content of flour. Protein content will vary between types of flours and even from batch to batch of similar type flours. For example, cake flour has a very low protein content - something like 8%. That's why it's good for cake - it keeps it from getting tough.

All-purpose flour will range from about 9-12% protein; in the US, the most popular mainstream AP flours are about 10.5 %.

Bread flour is higher still, ranging from 12-15% protein, which gives the bread it's stretch and chewiness.

I used to buy something called "vital wheat gluten" for bread making that was mostly, if not exclusively, wheat protein. It looked a lot like flour, though a little darker. But if you got it wet it would get extremely gummy and be difficult to wash off/out. I learned not to wipe it up with a dishcloth if I spilled it on the counter or I'd never get it out of the cloth!

Probably there's a lot more you'd like to know, but hopefully that's a beginning for you.

Again, welcome to the community!

Beth