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Prediction of Baking Characteristics of Hard Winter Wheat Flours Using Computer-Analyzed Mixograph Parameters

¹Supervisory research chemist, postdoctoral research chemist, food technologist, and research food technologist, respectively, USDA-ARS, Grain Marketing and Production Research Center, Manhattan, KS 66502. Names are necessary to report factually on available data; however, the USDA neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the product, and the use of the name by the USDA implies no approval of the product to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable. ²Professor, Department of Grain Science and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506. ³Corresponding author. E-mail: jay@gmprc.ksu.edu Phone: 785-776-2708. Fax:785-537-5534.

The objective of this research was to determine whether computer-analyzed (objective) mixograph parameters could replace conventional mixograph parameters in the evaluation of flour quality. The 642 hard winter wheat flours, collected from federal regional performance nurseries in 1995 and 1996, were analyzed by a conventional and computerized mixograph. Mixograph bandwidths at 6 min (BW6) showed the most significant linear correlation with subjective mixing tolerance scores (r = 0.81, P < 0.1%, n = 642). Prediction models of conventional and experimental baking parameters were developed by continuum regression using computer-analyzed mixograph parameters of a calibration set (n = 282). The developed models could estimate conventional mixograph mixing time and tolerance scores, baking water absorption and mixing time, and bread loaf volume, showing R² values of 0.86, 0.74, 0.68, 0.80, and 0.51, respectively, for a validation set (n = 380). These results indicated that computer-analyzed mixograph parameters could be applied to develop prediction models to be used for flour quality evaluation in wheat breeding programs.