Dough Rheology

Nationally, the rheology of wheat-flour dough is important for two independent reasons. On the one hand, information about the microscopic rheology of wheat-flour dough is required by the plant breeder if improved varieties of wheat are to result in enhanced export income. On the other hand, because bread is a major component in the daily diet of Australians, improving the efficiency of the mixing of wheat-flour dough is important from various economic, industrial and environmental points of view.

The design of mixers for commercial bread backing is still essentially a black art. It is clear that, when mixed on a Tweedie mixer, in order to achieve the mixing of 300 kilos of dough in three minutes, the higher molecular weight gluten components are destroyed which results in the poor quality bread bought in supermarkets. Because of both cost and quality considerations, the efficient mixing of wheat flour dough has become a major consideration for the bread industry.

The major goal of the dough rheology project involving CMIS and CSIRO GQRL is to help improve export income from the sale of wheat by giving plant breeders, using genetic engineering, much more explicit details about the types of and proportions of proteins and starches which the mature wheat kernels should contain. To-date, this has involved modifying the GQRL's 35 gram mixer to record the mixing process in much greater detail than in the past, designing experiments to improve the quantitative characterization of the mixing process with greater precision than in the past, and formulating models to explain the new data.

Contact: Bob.Anderssen@csiro.au or visit his web site.