Cereal Chem 69:141-144   |  VIEW ARTICLE

Age-Related Changes in the Cake-Baking Quality of Flour Milled from Freshly Harvested Soft Wheat.

K. Shelke, R. C. Hoseney, J. M. Faubion, and S. P. Curran. Copyright 1992 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

We monitored the milling and cake-baking quality of freshly harvested soft red winter wheat composites from two crop years over a 16-week period after harvest. In both years, composites of three varieties were milled biweekly, and a portion of the flour was chlorinated immediately after milling. The quality of white layer cakes produced from the untreated and chlorinated flours was assessed over a two-week period following each milling. Flour particle size analyses indicated that the kernels did not become harder with time after harvest. Regardless of chlorination, freshly milled flours produced batters with high specific gravity. Batter specific gravity decreased greatly during the first two days after milling and continued to fall thereafter at a lower rate. Immediately after milling, all flours (regardless of chlorine treatment) produced collapsed cakes. The cake-baking quality of the flours improved with both wheat and flour age. Flour milled from freshly harvested soft wheat changed rapidly in the time immediately after milling. The rate of postmilling changes slowed as a function of prior wheat storage time. Chlorine treatment improved cake- baking quality and dampened but did not prevent the observed postmilling fluctuations in quality.