larisa.cato@aegic.org.au

Southeast Asia (SEA) is the largest and fastest growing market for Australian wheat. The volume of the total bread segment in SEA is approximately 4.5mmt. Achieving the ideal loaf volume is the single most important valued attribute for flour millers when selecting wheat for bread. Other bread attributes, such as crumb softness, whiteness and structure and dough rheological properties of flour are secondary to loaf volume.

The most important flour and dough rheology characteristics were: water absorption, dough stability time, development time and strength, specifically, dough and fermentation tolerance along with wet gluten content. Many of these characteristics are associated with water holding capacity and retaining bread volume and shape.

A rapid shear-based test using a GlutoPeak instrument was compared with commonly used tests to assess the potential of this instrument to discriminate between wheat varieties and grades varying in protein content and strength. Fifty wheat flour samples derived from Australian varieties grown in different seasons and environments were analysed by Glutomatic, Farinograph, Extesnograp and GlutoPeak.

A subset was also tested for bread baking potential. Five different salts, NaCl, KCl, Mg2Cl, CaCl and NH4Cl at different concentrations were investigated. At lower concentrations all salts appeared to have similar impact. Type of salt and concentration will be discussed here and correlated to ability of GlutoPeak to discriminate between different wheat types and their suitability for bread baking in SEA.