Improved Method for Measuring Wheat Flour Dough Pressure-Sensitive Adhesiveness.

Wheat flour dough adhesiveness was evaluated using a new instrumental method based on the extrusion of a dough strip through a specific Plexiglas cell, and the measurement of adhesiveness to a Plexiglas probe attached to a texturometer (TA.XT2-250N). Experimental conditions for adherence measurement were based on a central composite experimental design (four parameters, five levels). Effects of both dough water content and dough strip thickness were studied. As dough water content increases, bulk stretching of the dough increases, which gives rise to a shoulder on the recorded force-displacement curve (in addition to the formation of visible fibrils), more pronounced at higher water contents, and to an increase in the specific energy of separation (omega) (J/m(^2)). Increasing dough thickness also increases omega, due to additional energy dissipation in a higher volume of dough. The new strip method was then compared with a method using a screen located between dough and probe. The former gave more reproducible and discriminant results.