Effects of fine grinding of millfeeds on the quality attributes of reconstituted whole-wheat flour and its raw noodle products

Effects of millfeed particle size on the quality of whole-wheat flour (WWF) and raw noodles were investigated. Four ranges of particle size distribution of millfeeds from hard red spring (median diameter: 307, 260, 225, and 178 gm) and hard red winter (median diameter: 319, 274, 235, and 185 mu m) were obtained by fine grinding. For both wheat classes, the CIE L* values of WWF decreased and a* and b* values increased with the reduction of millfeed particle sizes. WWF with finer millfeeds exhibited higher PPO activity than that with coarser millfeeds. RVA analysis showed that peak viscosity, trough, and final viscosity of WWF significantly decreased as the particle size of millfeeds reduced, while breakdown and setback values revealed no obvious trend. Reducing the particles of millfeeds not only significantly increased the Farinograph stability time of WWF dough, but also improved the whole-wheat noodle (WWN) brightness (L*) at both 0 and 24 h. Texture profile analysis of cooked noodle indicated that hardness, springiness, cohesiveness and resilience values all significantly increased as the particle sizes of millfeeds were decreased. These results suggest that reduction of millfeed particle sizes before reconstituting WWF could provide beneficial effect on the quality improvement of WWN. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.