Cereal Chem 59:500 - 506.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Flour Chlorination. II. Effects on Water Binding.

G. Huang, J. W. Finn, and E. Varriano- Marston. Copyright 1982 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

The effects of commercial levels of flour chlorination on some physicochemical characteristics of the flour were studied. At temperatures of 90 C and above, swelling power and solubility of the high-starch fractions from the air classifier increased as a result of chlorination. Although chlorination did not alter the differential scanning calorimetry gelatinization phase transition in either simple (flour-water) or complex batter systems compared to unchlorinated counterparts, at 90 C starch granules in batters containing chlorinated flour exhibited a greater loss of birefringence and swelled more than starch granules in batters made with untreated flours. Pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance studies showed that at the same moisture content, the characteristics of the T2 relaxation curves were affected by chlorine dose. Chlorination levels of 2 or 4 oz/cwt altered the distribution of molecular species of water in flours having a moisture content of 16%. Water activities of batters made with unchlorinated and chlorinated flours were identical until the temperature reached 80 C. At that temperature, batters containing chlorinated flour exhibited higher water activity than batters containing untreated flour. Greater mobility of water in systems containing chlorinated flour might account for the greater starch gelatinization in those samples.