I'm curious as to why you are making vital wheat gluten from whole wheat flour. Any of the benefits from whole wheat vs white wheat end up down the drain, as the whole point behind washing the dough is to get rid of anything that isn't gluten protein. If you want to make vital wheat gluten from flour, start with white as it is much cheaper as it contains fat more gluten per weight. I am also curious as to why you are making vital wheat gluten from scratch when it is even cheaper to buy it, and you don't have to dehydrate and grind in to a powder like the home made stuff. If vital wheat gluten is not available in your area then I can see why, but unless you dehydrate it and turn it to flour, you will be very limited in what kind of seitan you can make, as the finished gluten dough doesn't take to marinade very well.
1. Because it is not easily available. I cannot just pick it up at a local
grocer, I have to order it online.
2. I cannot grow vital wheat gluten, obviously, as it's a prepared product.
3. I agree many of the benefits are washed away, though I doubt as many
as had I started with an already stripped grain. My goal was to make
a textured product from bare essentials with little dependence on
anyone. As it stands, for this I just depended on the grain mill for
flour. But one must start somewhere.
4. I didn't dehydrate it or grind it. The finished product still had a meat like texture. It may not
have been as versatile as something made from white flour or vital wheat gluten itself, but I wasn't
interested so much in this as I was in just making it from (near) scratch.
5. Have you tried making seitan from a gluten containing whole grain so that you can say definitively that
it won't marinade well? I'm not saying you're incorrect in this, just that I prefer direct experience
as proof over mere reckoning.
Although I did not attempt a marinade, after it was made and before it was baked, I kneaded it again in
a bread maker adding the desired spices. After baking, the end product was slice-able, had a meat like texture,
and the flavor of the spices added. That was basically what I was after.