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Understanding Wheat Flour 
The 'biochemical dissection' of wheat flour could lead to better predictions of its breadmaking performance - without having to bake the final product. During 2007, a member funded project continued to explore the possibilities this presents. It is well known that the high-molecular-weight (HMW) glutenin proteins strongly influence breadmaking quality of wheat. However, the effects of other proteins and of carbohydrates and lipids are less well understood. This was therefore explored by extracting these flour components and swapping them, to see which most affects the performance of the flour in a range of tests. The tests included small scale rheological methods for assessing mixing characteristics, use of an 'extensibility rig' for measuring dough resistance, and a small-scale baking test based on the Chorleywood Bread Process. The latter is, in itself, a long sought goal and its resolution through the project is a major innovation. Using as little as 50 grams of flour it produced good quality loaves which, with the control parent flour samples, were of similar quality to their full-sized counterparts. The experiments revealed the positive effect of watersoluble flour fractions on the specific volumes of loaves from reconstituted flours. Taking such fractions into account could enable better predictive assessment of grain samples for baking quality as well as offering potential for development of ingredients with new properties. Contact: Dr Dhan Bhandari |