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Determination of Bran Contamination in Wheat Flours Using Ash Content, Color, and Bran Speck Counts¹

¹Contribution No. 99-238-J, from the Kansas State Agricultural Experiment Station, Manhattan, KS 66502. ²Research associate and associate professor, respectively, Department of Grain Science and Industry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506. ³Corresponding author. Phone: 785-532-4064. E-mail: raf@wheat.ksu.edu

A fast new method based on image analysis, ScanPro Speck Expert (SPX), to determine the bran contamination in wheat flour was studied and compared with existing methods (air-oven, ash, and color measurements) using an Agtron color meter and a Minolta chromameter. Twenty-one hard red winter wheat flour samples with ash contents of 0.30–0.58% were collected from the Kansas State University pilot mill and used for this study. Intrinsic variability in the flour sample because of randomness of bran speck orientation and distribution in the sample holder could result in variation in the speck count. Simple and multiple linear regression analyses showed that estimation of flour ash content from the SPX results (R² = 0.91) would be more accurate than the results from color measurements (R² = 0.66 [Agtron color meter] and 0.74 [L*]). The added capability of SPX image analyzer to not only count the number of bran specks but also to measure their areas probably increases the accuracy of determining the bran contamination in wheat flour by image processing.