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Description of a Micromill with Instrumentation for Measuring Grinding Characteristics of Wheat Grain

¹INRA-ENSA, Unité de Technologie des Céréales et des Agropolymères, 2 place P. Viala, 34060 Montpellier Cedex, France. ²ULICE (LIMAGRAIN Group, Riom, France). ³Corresponding author. Email: abecassi@ensam.inra.fr

A new method for characterizing the grinding characteristics of wheat grain is described. A micromill was designed for this purpose and equipped with on-line torque transducers to obtain accurate measurements of mechanical energy consumption during milling. This micromill can be used for testing the milling performance of small quantities of grain (100 g). It can distinguish between different types of wheat grain (soft wheat, hard wheat, durum wheat) on the basis of total specific energy during milling. Wheat characterization can be enhanced by taking particle sizes of the milled products into account. A milling index based on energy consumption and particle size reduction was developed to characterize wheat behavior during milling. This index had a high discriminatory potential, ranging from 100 kJ/kg for soft wheat flour to 600 kJ/kg for durum wheat flour. This micromill directly measures the grinding resistance of wheat kernels as a function of both the kernel hardness and vitreousness, contrary to standard kernel hardness measurements obtained by particle size index and near-infrared reflectance analysis techniques that only reflect the fracture mode (fine particle reduction potential).