Rapid method for wheat flour aging

Freshly milled wheat flour made from high quality grain gives a low quality bread, especially in the processing of the newly harvested grain. The flour acquires requisite technological properties only after a certain amount of time, which is called flour aging. The strength of wheat flour increases with aging as well as the bread volume, but it takes a lot of time. The main reason behind the increase in strength of the aged wheat flour is change in physical properties of the gluten. The goal of current research is to determine the relationship between stabilization time of wheat flour capacitance and gluten content. The method is based on determining the electrical capacitance of the flour sample which is stabilized depending on gluten content of the flour and correlated with flour aging time. The method involves the use of 15 wheat flour samples with gluten content in the range of 23.0–32.0% and moisture content up to 15.0%. The proposed method allows to use mathematical equations to determine the time of flour aging depending on the gluten content.