Abstract
Empiric rheology is considered a useful tool for assessing the technological quality of wheat. Over the decades, several tests have been adapted from common to durum wheat, and new approaches have been proposed to meet the needs of the players of the durum wheat value chain. Breeders are looking for reliable methods to test the functional quality of wheat lines at early stages, where there are limited amounts of sample; millers need fast and reliable methods for checking wheat quality right at the point of the receiving station; and pasta-makers are looking for suitable methods to predict end product quality. This review provides an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the rheological tests currently used to evaluate the quality of durum wheat semolina, with the emphasis on Europe. Moreover, the relationships among the parameters obtained from different rheological approaches are extrapolated from the literature and integrated with the data obtained from 74 samples of durum wheat semolina. Although numerous efforts have been made to propose rapid and reliable tests for semolina characterization, the ideal test has yet to be proposed, indicating that researchers and pasta companies need to focus on perfecting the way to assess the quality of durum wheat and pasta.
Highlights
Accepted: 25 November 2021Durum wheat semolina is considered the ideal raw material to produce dry pasta; this statement is well accepted by all the players of the durum wheat value chain, from breeders to pasta-makers and consumers
The number of analyzed samples, differences in the characteristics of the raw materials differences in pasta-making conditions, in cooking procedures and in methods used for cooked pasta evaluation among the studies might account for the difficulty in determining relationships between semolina and pasta quality
The assessment of semolina quality continues to be of interest to researchers and pasta companies, suggesting that the ideal test to determine pasta-making potential has not yet been found
Summary
Durum wheat semolina is considered the ideal raw material to produce dry pasta; this statement is well accepted by all the players of the durum wheat value chain, from breeders to pasta-makers and consumers. As described by Resmini and Pagani [2] in the 1980s, on the basis of ultrastructure observations and confirmed in more recent years by several authors [3,4,5], pasta is considered to be of good quality, i.e., with high firmness (i.e., the degree of resistance to the first bite) and no stickiness (i.e., the adhesion rate of pasta to tongue, teeth, palate, and/or fingers) and no or minimal bulkiness (i.e., the adhesion rate of cooked pasta strands among them), if after cooking, a three-dimensional, continuous, almost non-deformable and elastic protein network surrounds each starch granule This optimal structure is guaranteed if proteins coagulate before starch swelling The relationships among the parameters of the different rheological tests are presented and discussed
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