Rheological characteristics of native and steamed wheat flour suspensions

Several Indian snack foods consist of an outer coating made with a wheat flour batter and a sweet or savoury filling. In order to study the possibilities of improving the rheological characteristics of batters used in the batter-coated products, wheat flour was steamed for varying periods of time (5, 15 and 30 min). The studies indicated that SDS-sedimentation values decreased from 35 to 24·5 mL, gluten forming protein was completely denatured, gel mobility increased and solubility of gliadin in the β-region decreased with an increase in the steaming period.The steamed wheat flour was used to make batters having 30, 33 and 36% solids suspended in water. The apparent viscosities of the batter increased from 9·6 to 19·2 Pa·s; the yield stress increased from 5·3 to 7·15 Pa; the consistency index increased from 27·86 to 78·31 Pa·sⁿ. The maximum values of all three parameters were observed in the batter which had a solids concentration of 36%, and which had been made with a flour steamed for 30 min. On the other hand, the flow behaviour index decreased slightly with duration of steaming and with increasing solid concentrations in the batter.