Hard Wheat

The SpectraStar is capable of accurately measuring moisture, protein, and ash in hard wheat flour. Approved wet chemistry methods for these parameters can take up to 16 hours. Flour millers rely on the speed of NIR technology to effectively gauge their process, bin the flour properly, and release the flour to their customers.

Traditional discrete filter NIR spectrometers are highly sensitive to particle size variations in flour. This sensitivity shows up as a bias between different flour grades and forces the laboratory technician to maintain separate product channels. Maintaining separate hard wheat flour channels is not necessary when analyzing samples on the SpectraStar. Scanning monochromator technology is less sensitive to particle size variation which improves overall NIR accuracy, especially when analyzing for ash content.

Flour millers can monitor flour extraction efficiency and flour quality by tracking the moisture, protein, and ash content during the process analysis. Most hard wheat flour end users have rigid flour specifications depending upon the bread or baking product. Flour millers must meet the demands of their customers without giving away valuable product. The ash content in flour is extremely important because it indicates the purity of the flour. The higher the ash content, the less endosperm / bran separation during the milling process and analysis of this agricultural product.

Hard wheat flour is the main food ingredient in bread and baking products due to its good milling and baking characteristics. It is produced by separating the wheat kernel into its three parts: bran (the outer protective covering), germ (the new plant embryo), and endosperm (the tissue that provides nutrients to the germ). Endosperm is the part of the wheat kernel that is finely milled into wheat flour.

Approximately 600 hard wheat flour samples currently reside in the Unity SpectraStar database. These samples were collected over five crop years at multiple locations across North America. The standard powder cup is adequate for this application. The resulting calibrations have proved to be accurate and reliable when validated with different hard wheat flour grades. Additionally, the calibrations are robust against small milling variations. Thus, laboratory technicians are adjusting the bias less frequently than with their old discreet filter NIR equipment.

SpectraStar Hard Wheat Flour Statistics