Testing For Baking Quality

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 8

Testing For Baking Quality

The Wheat Research Institute’s baking quality test for wheat was not based on something that they had read in a book—it was based on what the industry required, the director of the Wheat Research Institute, Mr R. W. Cawley, told members of the staffs of grain and seed firms who visited the institute this week in the course of open days.

Mr Cawley recalled that the institute did a lot of work with millers and bakers and was conversant with requirements of th eindustry. The institute, which had been established in 1928, had worked on a wide range of problems including those associated with the introduction of the header harvester in the. 19305, on the mechanisation of bakeries, and more recently on the development of testing of wheat at harvest.

Why should harvest testing be done? Mr Cawley said that it was for the same reason that a farmer wanted a germination ’test before sowing seed. It was to get some idea of how a wheat would perform.

Baking quality of wheat, he said, depended on gluten or protein, and it might be said that a test for protein would suffice. • However, in this ocuntry there were problems of bug and sprout damage to wheat that could not be detected in this way. Mr Cawley said that if the testing service did nothing else but identify bug-damaged samples, it would justify the expense involved. In a recent season, when

61 bug-damaged samples were identified, no baker received any bug-damaged flour. No publicity was given to this for the simple reason that the problem never got to the consumer’s doorstep. The problem with bread made from sprout-damaged grain was that it stuck to the blades of bread slicers, and any baker today who could not slice his bread was in trouble. Sprout damage, he said, involved premature germination of the grain. Wheat could also suffer from heat damage in the drying process, Mr Cawley said. The temperatures of wheat should not rise above 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This particular type of damage was something- that Could not be be detected on the outside of the grain. For testing the coming harvest’s wheat, Mr Cawley said, a« lot more staff would be used, and they were confident that they would be able to handle all the samples that would come in from firms.

Answering a question, Mr Cawley said no miller was interested in wheat with the slightest sign of bug damage in it, and there was no reason why he should' use any wheat that was damaged by heat. While the baking test had a lot of problems with it, Mr Cawley said that they regarded it as a test that was worth doing. The parties on the open days were shown the various phases of testing procedures at the institute. Mrs S. M. Best, a scientist on the staff of the institute, said that samples should contain 12 ounces and a maximum of lib, and they should not be skimped in quantity, particularly in the case of Arawa. Mrs Best and Mr T. A. Mitchell, also a scientist, emphasised the need for care in the naming of varieties. Mr Mitchell said that for different varieties there was a differing time of mixing involved at the dough-mixing stage.

Mr J. A. Mclnnes, the miller, said it was important that a sample was representative of a line, or there could be trouble when a line of wheat reached the mill and did not match up with the sample that had been tsted. At various points during the inspection, officers of the institute emphasised that while staff of the institute were not infallible, action had been taken to eliminate steps that might result in the mixing of samples, and everything was done to guard against mistakes. Where a sample had a low baking score, the test was repeated, Mr Mclnnes said, and tests had been done on a sample three or four times if there was a doubt. Mr Mitchell also emphasised this point.

Dr P. Meredith, assistant director of the institute, said that the institute issued bulletins on testing results as often as seemed necessary, and this was intended as a guide to intelligent dealing In wheat, so that millers would know what sort of wheat was available.

In the last year, he said, about 14,000 tests had been made. In the coming season, it was expected that the number of tests would approach 20,000. Dr Meredith said that the institute also had a research function. The two things that mattered chemically in wheat were starch and protein, with the latter being perhaps the most important Consequently their research involved the quality aspects of proteins and starches. Mr I. D. Sanders, a technical officer of the institute, said that there was no relationship between moisture content of wheat and baking score, when he discussed the moisture content angle of wheat He mentioned that there were now test blocks for testing of Marconi and Grainmaster meters in the various milling and wheat-growing centres like Christchurch, Ashburton, Timaru, Oamaru and Invercargill.