Modelling Water Absorption of Wheat Flour by Taking into Consideration of the Soluble Protein and Arabinoxylan Components

Damaged starch, protein and arabinoxylan (AX) content and composition have been related to water absorption (WA) in a large set of samples. We tested 20 modern bread wheat cultivars bred in Hungary, 20 old Hungarian landraces, and 17 cultivars with special biochemical/functional characteristics from all around the world, this last set for international comparison. Grain was field grown in the 2011 and 2012 harvest seasons. Alinear mathematical model has been developed to estimate WA from protein content, starch damage, AX content and the relative amount of soluble proteins with strong correlation (r2 = 0.65) between measured and estimated data. The introduction of a new parameter, related to the cultivar dependent quantitative composition of soluble proteins and determined by lab-on-a-chip (LOC) analysis, largely improved the predictability of WA. Based on the large variation among the level of AX and certain soluble protein components in wheat flour and their significant contribution toWA determination, ...