The Suitability of Various Canadian Wheats for Steamed Bread and Noodle Processing for the People's Republic of China

Abstract

A variety of Canadian wheat classes and grades were evaluated for their potential use in foods consumed in the People's Republic of China. The wheats were tested alone and blended with 70% U.S. SRW wheat to simulate typical Chinese wheat grists. A simulated Chinese mill flow was used to produce two grades of flour from each grist, a low ash patent flour and a high ash standard flour. The flours were processed into remix pan bread, Chinese steamed bread and noodles. As expected the low grade standard flours were inferior to the patent flours in processing quality. Remix pan bread quality was highly variable due to the wide range in flour strength and quality. Canada Western Red Spring wheats showed the best performance for this product. Chinese steamed bread exhibited much less variability between and within wheat classes than remix pan bread although steamed bread scores were better for the patent flours. With the exception of the Canada Western Red Winter wheat sample, all the Canadian wheats tested gave good noodle quality. Standard flour noodles were equal in cooking quality to the corresponding patent flour noodles, but exhibited significantly weaker breaking strength and lower water uptake during cooking.