Rheological performances of ancient wheat varieties

Abstract

Ancient wheat varieties are recently gaining an interest since several studies have targeted them as healthier alternatives to modern wheats. However, impaired baking properties compared to modern varieties, constitutes a great technological challenge. Aim of this study was to conduct a comparative evaluation of the rheological properties of ancient wheat species such as emmer, spelt and khorasan varieties. In order to achieve this, the wholegrain flours of these varieties were prepared and evaluated for mixing and thermal properties using Mixolab® device. Rheological measurement have shown that spelt and emmer flour were characterized with similar rheological profiles in terms of water absorption, dough stability, dough weakening upon mixing and heating and starch pasting properties. These two flours differ only in dough development time (DDT) and elasticity, where spelt flour exhibited almost twice higher DDT than emmer flour, while emmer flour was two times more elastic than spelt flour. On the contrary, khorasan flour was characterized with two peaks during dough development, grater dough stability and higher starch gelatinization and retrogradation rate. Considering the obtained results, among the ancient wheat varieties, khorasan can be the most suitable for bread-making. In general, making bread from ancient wheats will require modified baking techniques in order to satisfy the increasing consumer demand for these products, while improving wheat genetic biodiversity.