Role of the farinograph test in the wheat flour quality determination

Most objectively, the dough rheological methods can characterize the quality of winter wheat. The Farinograph test is the traditionally used one in Hungary, but the importance of other methods, such as Alveograph and Extensograph tests, are getting more widely known due to the interest and requirements of the industry and export markets. The Hungarian Standard on wheat quality follows the changes in the global markets; this is why the falling number appeared in the MSZ (Hungarian Standard) 6383 in 1998. As the interest in the results of other rheological test increased from our accession to the European Union, the evaluation of these parameters on different varieties has become an important issue of qualification and in 2012 limit values for Alveograph and Extensograph parameters appear in the Hungarian wheat quality standard. Additionally, while the baking value was the only evaluated parameter of the Farinograph test earlier, the standard was supplemented with limit values for water absorption capacity and stability too.

In this study, we revised different diagrams of Farinograph tests again from the previous years to reveal whether the new limit values for these Farinograph parameters change the valuation of wheat flour samples, therefore whether the quality groups in which the samples were ranked change considering the new requirements.