ABSTRACT
Fourteen millstream flours, a straight-run flour, bran, pollard, and germ were prepared separately from two Australian and two New Zealand wheat cultivars using a 650 kg/hr pilot roller mill. Glutathione (GSH) and oxidized glutathione (GSSG) were measured in all samples. The Australian cultivars had higher levels of GSH and GSSG than the New Zealand cultivars, and in all cultivars the levels in pollard and germ were considerably higher than in flour samples. Generally, the early break flours and early reduction flours had lower GSSH/GSSG levels than the tail-end break and reduction flours. There was a strong correlation between GSH/GSSG and ash content in millstream flours, which indicated that much of the GSH/GSSG in the flour was likely to have derived from contamination by bran, aleurone (pollard), and germ. There were also moderate to strong correlations between GSH/GSSG and the cysteine content of all proteins in flour. GSH/GSSG correlated strongly with the albumin and globulin content of flour but not with gliadin and glutenin. The volume and crumb texture properties of bread made with millstream flours in the absence of ascorbic acid (AA) were negatively correlated with GSH/GSSG. The change in bread volume and texture properties when AA was added to dough (baking improver effect of AA), however, were poorly correlated with GSH/GSSG.
