Cereal Chem 55:652 - 660.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Factors Affecting Farinograph and Baking Absorption. II. Relative Influence of Flour Components.

K. H. Tipples, J. O. Meredith, and J. Holas. Copyright 1978 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Interrelationships between six independent variables (protein, wet gluten, wet gluten/protein, damaged starch, pentosans, 100/amylograph viscosity) and six water absorption values (farinograph and baking absorption in two baking methods with variable malt level) were examined statistically for a series of flours and flour streams milled from Canadian hard red spring wheat. The strongest single predictor variable for farinograph absorption was starch damage. Addition of protein content as a second variable gave an excellent prediction of absorption; adding further variables to the prediction equation was not advantageous. By contrast, baking absorption in both long and short processes was largely a function of gluten/protein content, and the best explanatory combinations were any two of protein, wet gluten, and wet gluten/protein. Damaged starch not only had little influence on baking absorption but also appeared to have a negative effect, particularly when malt was used in the formula in a method involving bulk fermentation. Differences in pentosan content and amylograph viscosity between flour streams did not appear to have a major influence on fluctuations in either farinograph or baking absorption.