A new apparatus for the evaluation of rheological properties of wheat gluten

Abstract

In bread making the wheat dough undergoes some degree of deformation in each step of the process. It is generally accepted that the baking properties of wheat flour dough are mainly due to the viscoelasticity of the gluten protein. Measurement of the rheological properties of dough gives valuable information concerning the quality of the wheat flour, the machining properties of the dough and the textural characteristics of the finished products. This technique uses a new apparatus (wheat gluten quality analyserŚWGQA, C HANG, 1994) especially developed to evaluate the rheological properties of gluten by measuring the following parameters: resistance to extension (newton), extensibility (mm) and energy (joule). The test realized with the apparatus WGQA was carried out on wheat gluten isolated according to the A.A.C.C. (1995) method. Results obtained using the new technique showed high levels of correlation for maximum resistance to extension (R 2 =0.9018) and energy (R 2 =0.8824) between WGQA and standardiz...