Developments in bread-making processes

Abstract

An introduction to the evolutionary history of wheat is followed by a description of the origin and distributionof the modern hexaploid wheat varieties in Europe. Next,the influence of cultural (the way of bread-making),social and economic (i.e. the great influence of the UnitedStates and Canada) factors on wheat growing in Europe areconsidered (Section 1). The anatomy and chemical compositionof wheat grains and the fundamental differences between hard and soft wheat are described in Section 2. The processof flour making is treated in Section 3. Section 4 containsa study of gluten proteins and wheat starches in relation to the making of bread (Section 5) and of other wheat products (Section 6). Section 7 deals with the geneticbread-wheat properties: grain hardness, milling quality,production of (unwanted) sticky doughs, α-amylaselevels, and contains an extensive study of genetics and the role of gliadins and glutenins. A concluding sectioncontains the description and evaluation of assay methodsto identify the characteristics of bread wheats for the use of millers, arbiters, and especially for growers.