Impact of Wet Gluten Content on Non-Linear Viscoelastic Properties of Wheat Flour Doughs

Abstract

The impact of wet gluten content in wheat flours on viscoelastic responses of the resulting wheat flour doughs under large deformations were studied using the Large Amplitude Oscillatory Shear (LAOS) tests. For this purpose, dough samples of hard red winter (HRW) wheat flour with 29.80.26% wet gluten and soft red winter (SRW) wheat flour with 23.90.15% wet gluten were obtained at the end of the Farinograph tests. Farinograph mixing stability and optimum water absorption capacity were higher for HRW wheat flour. LAOS tests revealed the contribution of gluten content to the resilience of wheat flour dough against the increasing deformations. Higher strain stiffening was found for HRW wheat flour dough with higher gluten content under large deformations with high frequency, resembling the deformations experienced during dough processing steps such as mixing or sheeting. Intracycle shear thinning behaviors of doughs were not affected by the gluten content at each frequency studied.