On the use of low protein flours and ‘smart’ sheeting lines for making bakery products

Australia is a major exporter of wheat to South East (SE) Asia. Much of this wheat is low protein, fails in standard bake tests and is not traded as bread wheat. Some SE Asian bakeries observed that these doughs spread too significantly to be usable on current bread manufacturing lines. However, high-spread doughs are suited to sheeting lines and can produce high quality products. For confirmation, a pilot-scale dough sheeting line was constructed consisting of four roll-stands and a folder/lapper. Rollers were fitted with sensors to measure roll forces and dough sheet thicknesses. The first roll stand was also used to test flours for dough rheology. The sensors captured flour effects on dough flow quality during sheeting (‘sheetability’). The offline dough rheology data correlated with ‘online’ dough sheetability. The Australian flour doughs flowed more steadily through the roll stands than conventional bread doughs and also produced high quality sandwich breads.