Development of Gluten Extensibility Measurement Using Tensile Test

Gluten is a viscoelastic mass obtained from washing wheat flour dough. A simple set-up of tensile test was built to determine gluten extensibility, which is one of the most common measurements used in determining the quality of gluten. The main problem encountered in performing gluten and dough extensibility test is holding of the sample so that it breaks within the sample and not at the jaws that hold the sample. In this research, gluten strips of about 5.0 ± 0.5 g were clamped to the set-up which was attached to Instron 5566 series and then extended at the centre by a hook at crosshead speed of 300 mm min-I. Extensibility parameters such as original gluten length, gluten length at fracture, measured force, actual force acting on the gluten strips, strain, strain rate and stress were obtained using the formulas derived from the results of measurements. The performance of gluten extensibility between strong and weak flour dough were compared. The results of the study showed that gluten obtained from strong flour has greater extensibility compared to weak flour.