Studies in rheological properties of wheat batter prepared from wheat grains fermented at different temperatures used to prepare Kurdi - a traditional Indian food

Wheat batter prepared from fermented wheat grains is used to prepare traditional Indian food products like Kurdi in Maharashtra and Seera in Himachal Pradesh. These batters were prepared by soaking wheat grains (Triticum astivum L., PBN51) in water at different temperatures – 30, 37.5 and 45°C, crushed, filtered and analyzed. Reducing sugars, Total Plate Count and titrable acidity increased, whereas, pH, peak temperature, endothermic peak area decreased after fermentation (soaking) and also with increase in fermentation (soaking) temperature. Yield stress decreased by 65% and 82% for wheat grains soaked at 37.5° and 45°C, respectively. Of the various rheological flow models tried for model fitting, Cross model well-fitted the observed flow trend in the wheat batter with a root-mean-square error of less than 1%. Viscosity and yield stress of the wheat batter decreased with increase in soaking temperature, which was confirmed by the analysis of flow behavior index and consistency index.