Farinograph

The Farinograph-E (Figure 6) uses a PC to process the data from the Farinograph this is a considerable improvement over measuring pieces of paper from a chart recorder. The software supplied runs under Windows and can multi-task so that one PC can handle data from several instruments. This is particularly convenient as the Farinograph is used to prepare doughs for the Extensograph. 

The water absorption measured by the Farinograph is normally reported as a percentage. The barbarous units of gallons per sack is sometimes encountered. A sack of flour contained 20 stones or 280 lbs of flour (approx. 127 kg). This unit was used when mixes were referred to as a certain number of sacks of flour and the water added was measured in gallons. 

Farinograph doughs only contain flour and water, so the water absorption obtained is a theoretical value. The value obtained from the same batch of flour in a bread dough will always be lower. When the Farinograph is used to prepare doughs for the Extensograph, the doughs do contain flour, salt and water. 

In a flour mill the Farinograph is used as a control instrument since the water absorption of flour can be increased or reduced by adjusting the mill, to deliver more or less starch damage. If the water absorption is too low, the pressure on the reduction rollers of the mill will be increased, thereby increasing the starch damage. Similarly, if the water absorption and hence the starch damage is too high the pressure must be... 

In a bakery the Farinograph can be used to test whether the flour is in specification or not. It would be possible to add more or less water, depending on a measured water absorption. 

The major use of the Farinograph in a bakery laboratory is to prepare doughs for the Extensograph. 

Typical Values from the Farinograph and Extensograph. Different sorts of flour might have values such as those shown in Table 2. 

Table 1. Farinograph values of dry-roasted navy bean flour fractions1 ...

EFFECTS OF GROUND FLAXSEED ON FARINOGRAPH PROPERTIES OF LEN HARD RED SPRING... 

Figure 8-29 Typical Farinograph Curve. (A) Arrival time, (B) peak time, (C) stability, (D) departure, (E) mixing tolerance index, (F) 20-minute drop. Source From H.P. Wehrli and Y. Pomeranz, The Role of Chemical Bonds in Dough, Baker s Digest, Vol. 43, no. 6, pp. 22-26, 1969.

Brabender, C. W., pp. 98-103. Evaluating the Quality of Flour by Means of an Automatic Machine—the Farinograph. 

Four formulations were used to produce French bread dough with different ascorbic acid quantities, as listed in Table 27.1. AACC 54-21 (AACC, 1995), a commercial bakers flour (Moinho Pacifico, Brazil) with a water content of 13.60% and farinograph water absorption of 65.60%, was used for all formulations. 

In the case of imitative methods, the properties are measured under test conditions that simulate those in practice. There are several instruments that perform imitative tests on solid foods (e.g., butter spreaders, the General Foods Texturometer, and the Brabender Farinograph). 

Kernel texture (38-47), Farinograph parameters (48-50), Alveograph parameters (48), Extensigraph parameters (50), Mixograph parameters (50), Zeleny sedimentation (38 0,51), SDS sedimentation (52, 53), bread loaf volume (48,49, 51, 54), water absorption (48,51) FermentabUity, hot water extract, specific gravity (in beer) (55-58), metabolizeable energy (59-62)... 

The results of several independent studies based on the use of a monochromator in reflectance mode over the range 1100 to 2500 nm suggest that a standard deviation of differences between NIR and Brabender Farinograph of approximately 1% may be expected for flour (6,15,40,42). 

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