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Wheat, one of the grain products that is the most important staple food in our diet, ranks first in the world and in our country in terms of cultivation and production area among plants.
Grain and grain products are of great importance in Turkey, both in terms of consumption habits and their share in the economy, and our interest in wheat in particular stems from our nature as the gene center of Anatolia, beyond our traditional eating habits. It has been determined that all wheat originates from the foothills of Karacadağ near Urfa Göbeklitepe, the first settlement center in the world. 198 registered varieties for bread and 61 for pasta were identified as of 2016. In 2015, 22.6 million tons of wheat were produced, corresponding to 3.3% of world production, and four out of every five farmers in Turkey grow wheat.
Wheat quality is evaluated according to its suitability for the final product, and one of the most important features among the quality control criteria is its protein content. Gluten, the most important component of gluten protein obtained from wheat flour or crushed wheat flour; It constitutes approximately 40% of the endosperm proteins in wheat flour.
Proteins; It determines many characteristic properties of the dough, and gluten, which hydrates in a mixture of flour and water and forms a network, spreads throughout the dough mass. Hydration of the gluten protein, which plays a role in gaining volume by keeping carbon dioxide bubbles in the dough during fermentation, greatly affects oxidation.
According to the proportions of gluten in flour; They are classified as very strong, strong, strong, extensible and weak. Rheological properties of proteins such as hydration capacity, oxidation and elasticity reflect the strength of the flour. In this classification, the strength of the flour is determined by the amount and quality of gluten.
While wheat producers want to have the highest wheat yield, wheat industrialists want to have the highest protein concentration at the lowest possible price.
Bakers want the gluten content of wheat to be high. The greater the amount and quality of gluten, the greater the gas holding capacity and the higher the bread yield and quality.
In the pasta industry, it is desired that the least amount of dry matter passes into the cooking water and that the pasta does not fall apart or stick while cooking. For this reason, the amount and quality of protein in durum wheat is a very important issue.
In the biscuit, cake and cracker industry; Controlled swelling of the produced products is desired. For this reason, it is desired that the protein ratio be around 10% in a weak and soft structure during the process.
The gluten feature in the total protein in wheat and flour mainly affects the rheological and technological properties of the dough, and research is still ongoing. International standards have been developed to determine the gluten index value and quality, and the gluten index value, which expresses the weight percentage of the wet extract remaining in the sieve after subjecting the gluten obtained to centrifugal force, has an important place in determining the quality.
One of these international standards is the determination of wet gluten, gluten index and dry gluten of wheat flour and whole wheat flour using Bastak Instruments' Bastak Quality control devices 6100 model Gluten Cheq, 2100 Model Centrifuge Cheq and 2500 model Dry Cheq (International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (ICC) ) is ICC No.192 Standard.
Bastak Gluten Quality System Devices; It works in thousands of flour, bread, pasta, biscuit and grain industry manufacturers, universities, research institutes and quality control analysis laboratories around the world. Bastak Gluten Quality System Devices are an approved world standard in determining the amount of gluten in flour and semolina used in bread, pastry, biscuits and pasta, the compliance of gluten index and dry gluten values with world standards, the final product volume, baking and baking quality.
Wet gluten, gluten index and dry gluten values obtained from flour, whole wheat flour, semolina, bulgur, vital gluten and noodles are produced in the Bastak factory, which has a closed area of 7000 square meters and the world's highest quality machinery with the latest technology, with the Gluten Quality System produced with 0.001-micron precision. are determined by international standards.
In addition, the method of determining the 'Falling Number' depending on the Alpha-Amylase Activity level based on viscosity using the Falling Number Cheq device of our Bastak Technology Systems Company has been made available to the world by giving the standard number 189 by the International Cereal Science and Technology Association (ICC).
-By Ayşenur Akpınar, PhD., Bastak Instruments
Source: Email/GFMM
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