Miller Magazine Issue: 141 September 2021

88 ARTICLE MILLER / september 2021 a determined dough viscosity) and the water absorption of the flour, is well known within the waffle production and can also be illustrated for similar flours (see pic. 6). Flours with a higher water absorption need more water for reaching a defined dough viscosity. This can be a di- sadvantage during waffle baking, as the baked waffle nor- mally has a water content of 1 – 2 %. Thus the complete water included in the waffle mass, has to evaporate during baking to reach that residual. In the baking process this evaporating water, acts as a leavening agent thus leading to very brittle or even incomplete products (inaccurate dist- ribution of the mass within the baking pan). A water redu- ction, however, is not always possible when those flours are involved, as the thereof resulting increase in viscosity is influencing the dough- and product properties negatively. A decisive factor is the water demand of the flour. An easy detectable effect in regards to the water requ- irement is the product density, and the specific weight. The higher the water amount, respectively the water de- mand, the lower the density of the waffle product (i.e. product weight). A high water absorption leads to pro- ducts with a low density, as qualitatively depicted in pic. 8. Besides the flour properties, parameters like baking temperature influence (especially the core temperature can strongly vary during batch baking) the dosing volume etc. and density of waffle products. Considering during baking these additional influencing factors, it implies that the correlation of the product we- ight with the water absorption is less significant than the correlation with the water demand in dough preparation. More important this applies to the batch baking of waffle sheets on laboratory scale, where significant diffe- rences in regards to waffle density may occur. GlutoPeak-Data The correlation of the water absorption obtained with the GlutoPeak method “Rapid Flour Check” and the wa- ter demand results in less significant values in compari- son with standard analysis (see pic. 9). Sample W700 (very high protein- and wet gluten con- tent) is clearly identifiable within the sample points. If only the waffle flours are considered, there is no clear trend visible. The same applies to the product density (Pic. 10). Therefore, the GlutoPeak parameter WA is less significant compared to the water absorption, measured by standard analysis. A better correlation is achieved, when the parameter G (wet glu- ten content) is selected instead of the parameter WA (Pic. 11 and 12). 3.3 Predicting Product Properties on Basis of GlutoPeak Data Predicting waffle pro- perties from flour data is difficult, as not only the Pic. 20: Correlation of water content measured by GlutoPeak Low Protein Check and routine analysis Pic. 21: Comparison of ICC- and Low Protein GP-Method relating to the water demand prognosis.