On the use of low protein flours and ‘smart’ sheeting lines for making bakery products

• Published in: Journal of food engineering 2017-09, Vol.209, p.36-44
• Main Authors: Chakrabarti-Bell, S., Patel, M.J., Ng, J., Hawkins, W.E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Australian wheat; Continuous dough sheeting line; Dough rheology; Dough sheeter test; On-line dough rheology sensors; Sponge-dough breads
• ISSN: 0260-8774; 1873-5770
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2017.04.001

Australia is a major exporter of wheat to South East (SE) Asia. Much of this wheat is low protein, fails in standard bake tests and is not traded as bread wheat. Some SE Asian bakeries observed that these doughs spread too significantly to be usable on current bread manufacturing lines. However, high-spread doughs are suited to sheeting lines and can produce high quality products. For confirmation, a pilot-scale dough sheeting line was constructed consisting of four roll-stands and a folder/lapper. Rollers were fitted with sensors to measure roll forces and dough sheet thicknesses. The first roll stand was also used to test flours for dough rheology. The sensors captured flour effects on dough flow quality during sheeting (‘sheetability’). The offline dough rheology data correlated with ‘online’ dough sheetability. The Australian flour doughs flowed more steadily through the roll stands than conventional bread doughs and also produced high quality sandwich breads. •A multi-roll stand dough sheeting line was designed with on-line rheology sensors.•Instrumented single roll sheeter used to test flours off-line for dough rheology.•Australian low protein flour doughs processed well on a continuous sheeting line.•Quality breads were made by sheeting using 100% Australian low protein flour.