Cereal Chem 67:111-114   |  VIEW ARTICLE

Use of a Kramer Shear Cell to Measure Cracker Flour Quality.

D. W. Creighton and R. C. Hoseney. Copyright 1990 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

A method developed to measure the physical properties of a straight dough with the Kramer shear cell was used to estimate the baking performance of cracker flours. The procedure involved adjusting the pH of a flour-water dough to 3.9 and allowing it to rest for 10 hr. For soft wheat flours, correlation coefficients of 0.89 between shoulder force and cracker weight and of 0.87 between shoulder force and stack height were obtained. A modified procedure that included neutralizing the sponge, adding salt, and remixing gave much better reproducibility. For soft wheat flour, correlation coefficients of 0.97 between shoulder force and stack height and 0.87 between shoulder force and cracker weight were obtained with the modified procedure. Although having more steps, the modified procedure was faster because of its much easier cleanup procedure. Hard wheat flours or blends containing hard wheat gave much higher shoulder forces.