Understanding Wheat Varieties and Their Uses

Wheat varieties are primarily classified based on the color, hardness of the kernel, and the planting season. The main types include Hard Red Winter, Soft Red Winter, Hard Red Spring, Hard White, Soft White, and Durum wheat. Hard Red Winter and Hard Red Spring wheat, known for their high protein content and strong gluten, are ideal for bread-making. Soft Red Winter wheat has lower protein and is preferred for cakes, pastries, and crackers. Hard White wheat, similar to Hard Red but lighter in color, is versatile for bread and brewing. Soft White wheat is used for delicate pastries and crackers due to its lower protein. Durum wheat, with its very hard kernels, is primarily used for pasta.

Flours milled from hard wheat varieties are prized for their high-quality gluten, making them essential for products requiring strong dough, such as bread and pasta. Given the varying qualities of different wheat types, millers blend flours to maintain consistent performance and quality in their products. This practice ensures that regardless of the wheat's origin or harvest conditions, the flour meets specific baking requirements.

All-purpose flour, a staple for home bakers, exemplifies this blending practice. It typically combines hard and soft wheat flours, providing a balance of strength and tenderness, making it suitable for a wide range of recipes from cookies to bread. This blending process ensures versatility and reliability in baking, catering to the diverse needs of home kitchens.
Understanding Wheat Varieties and Their Uses

Durum Wheat For Making Pasta

Pasta products like spaghetti and maccheroni usually are processed from coarse semolina milled from durum wheat by extrusion. Durum wheat variety differs from the other wheats in term of having endosperm that does not break into fine flour when milled but into coarse semolina, ideal for pasta making.

Other products that using durum wheat include: couscous, burghul, and several other traditional foods.

High protein semolina from durum wheats will generally yield semolina of uniform particle size with a minimum number of starchy semolina particles, eventually will hydrate evenly during mixing to produce pasta that is strong and elastic.

One of the characteristics of pasta made of durum wheat is when cooked, the pasta will swell and leaving minimal residue in the cooking water, while remaining firm to the point of serving.

Glutenins and gliadin are the most influence type of proteins on the strength and elastic properties of dough. In production of pasta, gluten must be tenacious enough to retain the gelatinized starch granules during pasta cooking.
Durum Wheat For Making Pasta

Wheat protein

Noodles are long thin piece of food made from a mixture of flour, water and eggs usually cooked in soup or boiling water. Noodles are rich in nutrition, easy to cook, and delicious traditional foods in Asian countries besides their increasing demand in many Western countries. Tra ditionally, wheat flour has been mainly used for noodles preparation.

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) produces one-seeded fruits, which are called grains or kernels. The pleasant flavor, long shelf-life and unique gluten forming characteristics of wheat products like pasta, noodles, bread, chapatti etc. make them very attractive among other cereals.

Quantity, composition (quality), type and viscoelastic properties of wheat gluten proteins are important for bread-making. Gluten comprises some 75% protein on a dry weight basis, with most of the remainder being starch and lipids. Their biological function is to provide carbon, nitrogen and energy sources for seed germination and seedling growth.

The two distinct groups of the gluten polymer that were classified reflected their solubility in 70% ethanol, namely glutenins and gliadins. The gliadins are single polypeptide chains and the glutenins are comprising polymers with subunits linked by disulphide bonds, is particularly important.

The wheat gluten proteins correspond to the major storage proteins that are deposited in the starchy endosperm cells of the developing grain. These form a continuous proteinaceous matrix in the cells of the mature dry grain and are brought together to form a continuous viscoelastic network when flour is mixed with water to form dough. Dough mixing requirement, rheological properties of optimally mixed dough and gas retention property of fermenting dough are determined by gluten proteins.

Wheat prolamins are the major storage proteins present in the starchy endosperm cells of the grain, where they are synthesized and deposited via the secretory system. Prolamins are high content of the amino acids, proline and glutamine.

The non-prolamin proteins; albumins and globulins of wheat, comprises 15-20% of total wheat flour proteins. Albumins are soluble in water and globulins are soluble in salts.
Wheat protein

Wheat in ancient India

Indian’s climate is dominated by the monsoon, a wind that brings alternating seasons of hot, dry weather and heavy rain and flooding. In the drier west and north, wheat was the crop from early times.

Wheat was used by the people of the Indus Valley Civilization. Grains of wheat have been found from various sites of Indus valley civilization. Historians believe that the Harappans ate mostly wheat, rice and lentils. They use the wheat to make stews, soups and flat bread called chapati.

According to research bread wheat was cultivated in west Asia long before the date of the earliest finds in India, it remains certain that the northwest of the Indian subcontinent is a major center of diversity of the species, T. sphaerococcum, which is a wheat of great antiquity and which has been found in the excavations at Mohenjo-daro dating back to 2300 BC , is supposed to have originated in the northwestern are of the Indian subcontinent.

Emperor Anoshirwan (531 AD to 579 AD) arrange for a land survey and determine the amount of land tax to be paid by tillers on the field growing of wheat, and also other crops.
Wheat in ancient India

Making Pasta

Making Pasta
Pasta is made from the hardest of wheats (durum) and has a higher protein and gluten content that other wheats, giving it the capability of producing a very stiff dough.

Pasta has two main ingredients: water and either flour or semolina. Semolina is the choice for commercial pasta makers for it has large chunks of protein and little starch. A dough made from it requires less water than flours, and pasta dough contains only about 25% water as compared to about 40% in bread dough.

In pasta making, after the dough is made, it is extruded into various shapes. The gluten matrix of semolina is stronger than that of flours and can with stand the pressure of dried to about 10% moisture.

This process is sensitive and requires much care to assure the timing and temperature are perfect to dry thoroughly but on the surface and the escaping inner moisture will cause cracking when it is added to pasta to produce egg noodles. The main purpose for the addition of eggs is for color and flavor.
Making Pasta

Flour for Japanese noodles

Japanese noodle flour must be prepared so that it has the characteristics that suit the preferences of Japanese consumers. Japanese eating habits have been influenced mainly by rice, leading to the so-called ‘rice culture’.

Noodles can be made from either red wheat or white wheat. However, white wheat has an advantage over red wheat for making noodles because the bran specks from the white wheat are less conspicuous.

The characteristics of noodles are related to the flour type used for noodle dough. Flour rather rich in gluten - either all purpose or bread flour is used for wheat noodles.

Wheat protein content is an important determinant of noodle quality. As flour protein increases, noodle firmness increases.

Soft wheat is used for Japanese white salted noodles, whereas hard wheat is used for yellow alkaline noodles.

The hardness of wheat has an influence on the milling process. The particle size of soft wheat flour is finer than hard wheat flour and generally, soft wheat flour is lower in protein content than hard wheat flour.

Numerous researchers have provided evidence that moderately high swelling wheat starch in flour is important to the quality of Japanese salt noodles. By contrast, wheat flours with low swelling starch are preferred for alkaline noodles in Japan.
Flour for Japanese noodles

Wheat gluten

Wheat is one of the world’s major cereal grass crops and its status as a staple is second only to that of rice. 

Protein content in wheat varies between 8 to 17%. Most endosperm protein is gluten (78-85%). Gluten is a very large complex primarily comprised of polymeric and monomeric proteins known as glutenins, and gliadins.

The viscoelastic nature of wheat gluten is unique among cereals and makes wheat ideally suited for making a wide range of products from various types of bread to pasta and noodles.

Gluten is tough, elastic grayish substance resembling chewing gum. It is the gluten in flour that, when a dough is kneaded, helps hold in the gas bubbles formed by the leavening agent.

During the continues and repeated sheeting process, gluten is further developed and aligned to the sheeting direction with further encapsulation of starch granules.

It will allow noodle strand to be slit from the dough sheet without breakage or loss of shape during drying, frying and cooking for the preparation of dried, fried and precooked noodles respectively.
Wheat gluten

Pasta Processed from Low Test Weight Wheat

Pasta Processed from Low Test Weight Wheat
Test weight (lb/bu or kg/hL) is an important quality trait of wheat as it can effect numerical grade designation and milling performance.

There was a report in the relationship of durum wheat test weight to spaghetti quality.

It was found that test weight had a highly significant effect on durum wheat quality when considered in the absence of environmental damage.

As test weight decreased, durum wheat milling potential declined because of the combined effects of lower semolina yield, higher semolina ash, and duller semolina color.

They found that semolina ash and semolina color were affected by environmental growing conditions, and that low test weight resulted in improved spaghetti cooked firmness and resilience because of a strong negative relationship between test weight and wheat protein.
Pasta Processed from Low Test Weight Wheat

Japanese Noodle

Japanese Noodle
During the heat summer, Japanese noodles wonderfully refreshing when serve floating in a bowl of ice water and accompanied by a chilled dipping sauce. In winter, noodles are commonly served in hot, shoyu-season broth. Whether in soups or salads, sautéed with vegetables, baked or topped who the sauce, noodles are always delicious.

Although there are many varieties within each type, there are two main categories of Japanese noodles: those made from buckwheat (soba) and those made from wheat (udon and somen). Because buckwheat requires cooler, drier growing conditions, the thin brownish gray soba noodle is mostly popular in northern Japan. Natural foods stores and Asian markets offer a wide variety of soba noodles.

One hundred percent buckwheat soba is a hearty, delicious, wheat free noodle that comes in salt free and salted varieties. Most soba noodles are made from 40 to 80 percent buckwheat flour, with the reminder being unbleached white flour. Ito soba, which contains 40 percent buckwheat flour, is a thin, delicate, noodle that cooks quickly and easily absorbs the flavor of broths, sauces or seasonings.

Udon is a thick, chewy, beige wheat noodle that resembles linguine and is favored in Kyoto and southern Japan. The varieties sold in natural foods stores are made from 100 percent whole wheat flour, or a combination of whole wheat and unbleached white flour.

One hundred percent whole wheat udon is a sturdy noodle with a robust whole wheat flavor and textured appearance. For a noodle that will readily absorb the flavors of broths, sauces and seasonings, use lighter, smoother udons – typically those made with some unbleached white flour. Brown rice udon, a combination of brown rice and wheat flour, is not a traditional Japanese food, but rather was developed especially for the natural foods market.

Though Japanese noodles are well suited to a variety of cooking styles and preparations, it is important to choose the right noodle for the dish to be prepared. For example, while soba and udon are excellent choices for stir-fried noodles, thin, delicate varieties of soba, such as ito and cha soba, are not recommend for frying, and 100 percent soba is also a poor choice. Somen, a thin wheat noodle is too delicate for frying.
Japanese Noodle