Abstract
Wheat is amongst the most consumed cereals in the world. Triticum aestivum is the most produced and consumed species of wheat in the form of refined flours, a result of grinding and sifting the grain. To obtain a lighter form of flour with fewer bran flakes, water is added to the wheat grains. The added water conditions the wheat grains by adjusting humidity, thus making the endosperm more friable and the bran more malleable. This study aimed to analyze the influence of the duration of wheat conditioning on the resulting flour’s technological characteristics, using time periods of 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21 hours. The extraction rates, color, ash, humidity, gluten, falling number, and alveography of each flour sample were analyzed. The acquired results exhibit an insignificant difference (p ≤ 0.05) in flours with different conditioning times for gluten, falling number, color (L*), ash content, and humidity. However, there was a significant difference (p ≤0.05) in extraction rate, gluten strength (W), as well as in tenacity and the extensibility ratio (P/L). Thus, 17 hours was discovered as the best conditioning durations, although a 13-hour conditioning could be used by companies who believe that the benefits outweigh the costs.
Highlights
Cereals are important crops for human consumption
The ash content obtained was 1.53% (Table 1), which is considered ideal for flour production since lower ash contents (
We conclude that for the wheat samples obtained in this study, conditioning for 17 hours resulted in a higher rate of extraction, in addition to better rheological properties of the wheat flour for baking
Summary
Cereals are important crops for human consumption. Among these cereals, wheat, a grass of the Triticum genus, is one of the most cultivated plants globally, with over 30 cultivars according to the USDA. The quality of grains is identified by physical parameters, such as hectoliter weight, the weight of a thousand seeds, grain hardness, color, and physical-chemical criteria (including moisture, ash, and protein content, as well as falling number). As for wheat flour, its quality is identified by the physicochemical and rheological parameters of moisture, ash content, proteins, falling number, gluten content and strength, water absorption, mixing properties, elastic, extensibility, bread volume and gas holding capacities of the resulting bread dough (Upadhyay, Ghosal & Mehra, 2012; Nuttall, et al, 2017)
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