Cereal Chem 64:46-49   |  VIEW ARTICLE

Optimizing Grinder Type and Methods of Expressing Wheat Meal Particle Size for Wheat Texture (Hardness or Softness) Measurement and Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy.

C. S. Gaines, R. E. Miller, J. R. Donelson, and M. M. Bean. Copyright 1987 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

The grinding characteristics of three wheat grinders (LabConco, Falling Number KT-3303, and Udy cyclone) were compared by measuring the particle size of meals produced, using four sieving techniques and five Microtrac laser light-scattering optical measurements. Seven wheat samples used in the evaluation represented a wide range of texture (hardness or softness). The LabConco-ground meals were coarser than the others, and samples were best differentiated by sieving the meals to determine particle size distribution or means as an assessment of wheat texture. Meals produced by the Falling Number grinder were of generally intermediate particle size distribution, and samples were best differentiated by analyzing meal particle size with the Microtrac instrument. The Udy cyclone produced meals having much finer mean particle size, more narrow particle size distributions, and overall the best differentiation among wheat samples (using the Microtrac). Therefore, the Udy/Microtrac combination was the best procedure for evaluating the texture of wheat samples with equal, if not better, statistical power than a (more coarse) grinder and sieving combination commonly used for particle size index testing.