Acknowledgments

Teagasc acknowledges with gratitude grant aid under the Food Sub-programme (Sub-Measure 3(ii) - Institutional R&D) of the Operational Programme for Industrial Development. The Programme is managed by the Department of Agriculture and Food and supported by EU and national funds.

Table of contents

• Summary
• Introduction
• Materials and methods
  • Materials
  • Methods
  • Compositional tests
  • Rheological tests
  • Baking tests
• Results and discussion
• Flour for pizza bases from home-grown wheat
  • Composition
  • Rheological properties
  • Baking tests
• Flour for biscuits from home-grown wheat
  • Composition
  • Rheological properties
  • Baking tests
• Relationships between the test variables for flour quality
• Effect of additives on flour from home-grown and imported wheats
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgements
• List of publications from this project

Summary

● For pizza production, the flour quality values identified for the wheat cultivars, Promessa, Quintus (spring), and Soissons (winter) should be used as guidelines in selecting new cultivars and in the development of flour specifications.

● Similarly for biscuit production, compositional and rheological data for the cultivars, Riband,Woodstock (soft-milling) and Brigadier (hardmilling) should be used for identifying biscuit flours.

● The rheological properties of dough (as measured by the alveograph, extensograph and farinograph) did not relate to the baking quality for some wheat cultivars. However the rheological properties of the gel protein prepared from these flours explained their baking quality. The very high elastic moduli of these gels explained the basis of shrinkage of pizza bases produced from Baldus and Lavett flours and biscuits produced from Ritmo flour.

● Gluten index values >80 indicate a strong gluten and 50 - 60 medium quality. Gluten index is a rapid test to segregate flours into those suitable for pizza bases (strong gluten) or biscuits (medium quality). However the differentiation of gluten quality within each category was not good enough in some instances, to identify the flours that produced baked products of inferior quality.

● Gluten quality was too strong and protein content too high for a German flour used on its own for pizza bases. Its baking properties were dramatically improved when blended with an English flour.

● In sauce production, the use of chemically modified cooked starches affected apparent viscosity, flavour profile and textural characteristics of sauces in chilled or frozen convenience foods.

● A small number of commercial flour samples had particularly low native stickiness while others had relatively higher values. Some difference was detected in the range of stickiness values ex-mixer on addition of fungal alpha-amylase. This increase was magnified when doughs were allowed proof for 45 minutes, flours with lowest native stickiness increasing to a greater extent than those with higher native stickiness.

● In batter production it was evident that wheat cultivar had a major influence on the coating characteristics of the fish batters produced. Of the cultivars tested, the hard milling winter wheat cultivar Rialto performed best under the cooking test.

● There was a linear relationship between the weight of coating on the raw fish and the viscosity of the batter mixture. Peak paste viscosity of the batters and alpha-amylase activity did not affect coating properties. There was only a weak relationship between protein content and coating properties. The level of starch damage in the flours did not influence the viscosity of the batters.