Cereal Chem 60:93 - 97.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Shear Stress Relaxation of Chemically Modified Gluten.

T. Mita and L. Bohlin. Copyright 1983 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Chemically modified gluten was studied in shear stress relaxation. The gluten was treated with glutaraldehyde, potassium bromate, cysteine, and ascorbic acid. The resulting relaxation curves, shear stress versus log time, were analyzed in terms of the theory of cooperative flow. In this way, the experimental results gave information on the structure of gluten and how this structure is affected by chemical modifications. In gluten, two cooperative flow processes generally occur. The primary process, which in unmodified gluten has a relaxation time of approximately 1 sec and a cooperative coordination in flow of four, is proposed to occur in a partly oriented fibrillar structure. The secondary process, which has a relaxation time of approximately 500 sec and a coordination in flow of two, is proposed to occur in a lamellar superstructure. In unmodified gluten, both structures flow like a liquid at long times. The results of this work clarify how the applied chemical modifications affect the two flow structures in gluten.