Discrimination of wheat varieties by simultaneous measurements of oxygen consumption and consistency of flour dough during mixing

Abstract

AbstractUsing an instrumented mixing reactor, oxygen consumption and torque evolution were recorded during the mixing of wheat flour doughs from eight pure French wheat varieties harvested in 2002 and 2003. Wheat flours were also characterised by biochemical analyses including lipoxygenase (LOX) activity assay, free polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content, glutathione and ferulic acid contents, results of alveograph and farinograph tests and breadmaking performances. Some parameters defined from the obtained torque curves, equivalent to consistency curves, were correlated with alveograph and farinograph data. The importance of LOX activity levels and free PUFA content to explain the oxygen consumption during mixing is confirmed. In addition to the characteristics of the oxygen consumption curves, the extent to which the consistency curve parameters are able to differentiate among doughs made with flours from different wheat varieties is considered. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry