Evaluation of Novel Quality Control Methods for Wheat Flour
(2021) KLGM10 20211Food Technology and Nutrition (M.Sc.)
- Abstract
- The quality of a flour can vary greatly depending on the wheat variety and on the conditions while growing the wheat. Currently, the quality is mainly assessed by test baking the flour to observe the volume of the final product. The aim of this study was to investigate if three instruments (Alveolab, Mixolab and Rheo F4) analyzing rheological behaviours connected to dough preparation and baking properties, can provide additional valuable information to current flour quality controls. To achieve this, Mixolab and Rheo F4 analyses were conducted on a large set of flour samples, and the results were processed with the multivariate analysis methods PCA and PLS. Ultimately, predictive models for baking volume were created and evaluated.... (More)
- The quality of a flour can vary greatly depending on the wheat variety and on the conditions while growing the wheat. Currently, the quality is mainly assessed by test baking the flour to observe the volume of the final product. The aim of this study was to investigate if three instruments (Alveolab, Mixolab and Rheo F4) analyzing rheological behaviours connected to dough preparation and baking properties, can provide additional valuable information to current flour quality controls. To achieve this, Mixolab and Rheo F4 analyses were conducted on a large set of flour samples, and the results were processed with the multivariate analysis methods PCA and PLS. Ultimately, predictive models for baking volume were created and evaluated. Furthermore, different preparation methods of doughs were tested in Mixolab and Alveolab to investigate how well these methods translate to the industrial bakery process. The results from the study indicate that the examined instruments alone are not able to give an accurate prediction of the baking volume. However, they seemed to provide a minor positive impact when creating a model where other quality control parameters and parameters connected to the chemical composition were included. This model obtained a predictive power, Q2, of 0.834, suggesting that additional information is needed in order to create a predictive model that is valid for industrial use. It was further seen that the standard protocols in Mixolab and Alveolab provide results vastly different from those obtained when preparing the analyzed doughs according to industry standards. To conclude, the methods do not seem to give enough additional valuable insights on the final quality to justify the extra cost and time it would take to include it in quality controls. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- Flour, water and yeast - how complex can it be?
Although bread is one of the oldest and most basic staple foods in the world, we have actually not yet been able to fully understand the underlying mysteries of bread making. The main components of all wheat flour are protein, carbohydrates and water but also small amounts of fat and minerals. What makes the flours different from each other is the ratios between these components, which in turn is strongly dependent on how the conditions were while the wheat was grown. These factors all contribute to the complexity of wheat flours.
For a company working with a large scale production of flour, such as Lantmännen Cerealia, it is of utmost importance to know how well a flour will bake.... (More) - Flour, water and yeast - how complex can it be?
Although bread is one of the oldest and most basic staple foods in the world, we have actually not yet been able to fully understand the underlying mysteries of bread making. The main components of all wheat flour are protein, carbohydrates and water but also small amounts of fat and minerals. What makes the flours different from each other is the ratios between these components, which in turn is strongly dependent on how the conditions were while the wheat was grown. These factors all contribute to the complexity of wheat flours.
For a company working with a large scale production of flour, such as Lantmännen Cerealia, it is of utmost importance to know how well a flour will bake. Consequently, several quality controls are conducted on the flour to give indications of how it will behave, and ultimately the flour is test baked and the final bread volume is examined. Many of these control methods can be quite time demanding and may not always give an accurate prediction of the final bread volume. This leaves room for improvement of current quality controls and an optimal solution would be to find a way to predict the baking volume. Therefore, this project aimed to evaluate the contribution of the three instruments Mixolab, Rheo F4 and Alveolab from Chopin Technologies could have in predicting baking volume. These equipment are designed to provide information regarding dough behaviour during mixing and proofing, starch and protein quality as well as rheological parameters such as tenacity, extensibility and elasticity.
Similar studies have been conducted in other countries, but what makes this one special is that it contains a large sample set and a large number of different analyses conducted on the flours. Mixolab and Rheo F4 were run with a set of samples and the results were analyzed by multivariate analysis. It turned out that Rheo F4 and Mixolab had a minor positive effect on prediction of final bread volume. Alveolab and Mixolab were further used to examine how well the methods correlate to the reality in industrial bakeries. The results imply that there are some differences that could be interesting to further investigate. Overall, the investigated methods show potential of providing valuable information on dough behaviour. Although they may not add enough new insights in order to be incorporated into routine quality controls. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9051961
- author
- Dahlman, Josefine LU and Laurent Hedlund, Stephanie LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- KLGM10 20211
- year
- 2021
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Wheat flour, Quality control, PCA, PLS, Alveolab, Rheo F4, Mixolab, Food technology
- language
- English
- id
- 9051961
- date added to LUP
- 2021-06-28 13:12:26
- date last changed
- 2021-06-28 13:12:26
@misc{9051961,
abstract = {{The quality of a flour can vary greatly depending on the wheat variety and on the conditions while growing the wheat. Currently, the quality is mainly assessed by test baking the flour to observe the volume of the final product. The aim of this study was to investigate if three instruments (Alveolab, Mixolab and Rheo F4) analyzing rheological behaviours connected to dough preparation and baking properties, can provide additional valuable information to current flour quality controls. To achieve this, Mixolab and Rheo F4 analyses were conducted on a large set of flour samples, and the results were processed with the multivariate analysis methods PCA and PLS. Ultimately, predictive models for baking volume were created and evaluated. Furthermore, different preparation methods of doughs were tested in Mixolab and Alveolab to investigate how well these methods translate to the industrial bakery process. The results from the study indicate that the examined instruments alone are not able to give an accurate prediction of the baking volume. However, they seemed to provide a minor positive impact when creating a model where other quality control parameters and parameters connected to the chemical composition were included. This model obtained a predictive power, Q2, of 0.834, suggesting that additional information is needed in order to create a predictive model that is valid for industrial use. It was further seen that the standard protocols in Mixolab and Alveolab provide results vastly different from those obtained when preparing the analyzed doughs according to industry standards. To conclude, the methods do not seem to give enough additional valuable insights on the final quality to justify the extra cost and time it would take to include it in quality controls.}},
author = {{Dahlman, Josefine and Laurent Hedlund, Stephanie}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Evaluation of Novel Quality Control Methods for Wheat Flour}},
year = {{2021}},
}