Miller Magazine Issue: 155 November 2022

74 COVER STORY MILLER / NOVEMBER 2022 Phillip Clancy Next Instruments Sydney, Australia Over the past 30 years, I have been involved in developing instrumentation that measures grain, flour, semolina, rice, corn, soybeans and many other products. This article describes several instruments that can provide millers with tools that can measure protein, oil, moisture, starch, milling quality and physical characteris- tics in the incoming raw materials, the process streams and the final product. Monitoring grain and flour quality Introduction There are different opinions on the amount of measurement that is required to produce an excellent product. The famous statistician, W. Edwards Deming, stated “Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production pro- cess.” He implies that increasing the number of tests of final product will only result in finding more defects. On the other hand, Peter Druker’s famous statement, “You cannot manage what you cannot measure”, implies that more measurements are better. These two quotes are not contradictory but com- plimentary. You need to make measurements of the process stream and the final product so that you can use the data to improve the process and thereby the final product. If you only test the output and do nothing to change the process, then you cannot expect to change the quality of your product. Over the past 30 years, I have been involved in developing instrumentation that measures grain, flour, semolina, rice, corn, soybeans and many other products. This article describes several instruments that can provide millers with tools that can measure protein, oil, moisture, starch, milling quality and phys- ical characteristics in the incoming raw materials, the process streams and the final product. Description Near Infrared Spectroscopy and Image Analysis are two tools that are available for millers to make rapid and con- tinuous measurements within a milling process. Near In- frared Spectroscopy, NIR, measures protein, oil, moisture and starch in grains as well as the final products, i.e., flour, semolina, rice flour, soy flour, soymeal, corn flour, corn meal, pasta, noodles, bread etc. NIR can also provide a measure- ment for ash, starch damage and water absorption in flour and semolina. Image analysis provides millers with a quali- tative assessment of physical parameters such as, blacktip in wheat, black specks in semolina and flour, rice kernel size and colour, crowning and horneous endosperm in corn and others. NIR ANALYSIS Starting at the grain intake platform in a mill, NIR analysers have been used for decades to measure the protein, gluten and moisture in wheat, oats and barley, protein, amylose and moisture in rice, protein, oil and moisture in corn, soybeans and oil seeds. It is most common that Near Infrared Transmis- sion (NIT) analyser be used to make measurements of whole grains and seeds. Near Infrared Reflectance (NIR) analysers can also be used however the seeds are first ground in a mill and presented to the analyser as a powder. Figure 1 shows a diagram of how NIT and NIR analysers operate. Spectra of whole and ground wheat, rice, corn and soybeans are shown in figure 2. Note that the wavelength scales differ for NIT and NIR analysers. Protein, moisture, oil and starch absorb infrared energy with- in the spectral region from 720 to 2500nm. The amount of