Processing of Wheat

Wheat the basic ‘bread grain’ of the European civilization has been the chick source
of human food, for at least the past 6000 years. Wheat is the second important food
grains of India.

It is estimated that 10 percent of the crop is lost either during harvesting, threshing
transportation or storage. With increasing production this amount of loss is very
significant. The losses in storage are both quantitative and qualitative. It is necessary
that every effort is made to reduce the losses particularly in storage. The slogan that
“grain saved is a grain produced” should be popularized among the farmers the
traders.
Next to rice, wheat is the second most important food crop. With reduced acreages
under coarse cereals such as sorghum, minor millets, pearl millets, finger millets and
barely, the food habits of the people are gradually shifting in favour of rice and wheat.
The importance of wheat is increasing in modern society because of its flexibility in
making ready to eat or easy to make or other convenient foods. Even in the traditional
rice eating states wheat is popular. A number of milling, baking and confectionary
units are coming up. Different type of foods requires different qualities of wheat. Thus
wheat consumption will continue to rise and subsequently the demand for different
kinds of wheat.
 Processing of Wheat

In the traditional method of harvesting ripe wheat is cut and bound in to sheaves,
which are stood in stacks in the field. The action of wind and sun reduces moisture
of the wheat from between 16 percent in a few days. When the moisture is
sufficiently reduced sheaves are collected, stacked and threshed. The threshed
grain with moisture of 14 % or less can be stored safely.
 Structure of wheat grain

The grain of wheat consists of outer covering the pericarps and testa which is
hard and indigestible, an aleurone layer, which contains a higher proportion of
protein than flour, an embryo attached to a small structure, the schutelum at the
lower end of the grain, and finally the endosperm comprising of 85 percent of
the whole grain from which the flour is derived.
It is important to mention that the milling of wheat is physical process. The
composition of bran germ and endosperm in wheat is given below:
Bran – 12%
Germ – 3%
Endosperm – 85%
 Purpose of flour milling

The purpose of flour milling is to first separate the endosperm from bran and germ
in large chunks as possible and then reduce the size of the endosperm chunks flour
sized particles through a series of milling steps. The germ can be rather easily
removed because it contains oil which makes it putty-like and hence it will flatten
under the force of rolls. However, the case with bran is quite different. Bran like
endosperm is ground very easily into a fine powder and hence it is quite impossible
to separate it from a fine powder and powdery endosperm. Flour contaminated with
wheat bran is brownish rather than white is not desirable for food purposes.
The effective separation of bran form endosperm depends upon the principles:

(i) When wheat is soaked with water, the bran becomes tough and rubbery while the
endosperm which is in the interior becomes soft and friable.

(ii) When wheat berry is sheared by the corrugation of first roll or break will spilt
open releasing some endosperm and flour and thus export the remaining
endosperm of the bran in successive break rolls.

Most of wheat mills obtained about a 70 % field of flour from a theories yield of
about 85 percent total endosperm. The by-products of milling- the grain and shorts
and bran together comprise about 30 % of the mill stream.
 Wheat milling process

The wheat milling process consists of five main parts. They are;

(i) reception and storage of wheat

(ii) cleaning of wheat

(iii) tempering or conditioning

(iv) milling of wheat into flour and its by products.

(v) storage of the finished products

Wheat selection is important to the flour miller without sound wheat unspotted, and
free from insect contamination the miller is powerless to pro an adequate product.
Whether wheat is to be bread production or for cakes, coke, pastry or biscuits
depends primarily upon the protein content of the wheat. So the flour contains a
lower percentage of protein then the grain from which milled, the wheat is brought
at about one percent higher protein content wanted in the finished flour.
It should be pointed out that wheat as other cereal grains is subject to govern
inspection and grading. Such a grading system is of great help to the grain. Since it
not only takes into consideration the soundness of wheat for milling pulse but also
limit the amount of contamination of other cereal seeds, weed seed that foreign
matter.

Wheat is stored at the mill in large concrete line. Before storage the wheat
undergoes a preliminary cleaning and drying to remove the grass impurities foreign
material and to remove moisture if necessary do that the wheat can stored without
heating. Heat production results from the growth of microorganisms in the grains
and is caused by the heat of their respiration process and these that, wheat must be
kept dry normally no higher than 14.5 percent moisture.

The drying process is coupled in three stages.

Since the grain impurities have already been removed at the storage the techniques
used in the cleaning house is more refined. Wheat cleaned by removing loose
foreign material and dirt adhering to the surface of the grain.

Wheat is weighed as it enters the cleaning house and therefore goes through a
separator, which is set to remove fine impurities and dust. Small pieces of sticks,
stones, sand and dust are shifted away and light impurities such as wheat chaff are
removed by air current. After this wheat passes over magnetic separators to remove
by adventitious metal which may have formed their way into the wheat mix. Another
cleaning machine used to remove other cereal grains and weed seeds is a disc
separator. In such a disk separator different types of plates can be set to discharge
wheat at any place along the route.

Next step in the cleaning operation is the removal of dirt from the surface of the
wheat by scouring. The scourers differ widely in design. Usually the wheat is
removed by paddles against an emery coated surface, the severity of the treatment
being controlled by the clearance between the paddles and stationary emery surface.
The dirt and outer coating of wheat bran are removed by air aspiration.
The final cleaning step is a water work. The water dissolves the dirt and permits
stones and bits of metal to sink. In some cases it appears to reduce microbiological
contamination of the wheat and in all cases worker tends to add about one percent
water to the original moisture content.
 Tempering or Conditioning

Tempering refers to the addition of water to the bran and endosperm. The bran
becomes tough and rubbery while the endosperm becomes less vitreous. This
improves milling efficiency.

Tempering involves adding water to raise the moisture to 15 to 19 % for hard wheat and
14.5 to 17 % hours. During this time, the water enters the bran and diffuses inward
causing the bran to loose its friable characteristics and to become leathery in textures.

Conditioning, in contrast to tempering always the use of heat since quick diffusion of
water into endosperm as well as the bran is the purpose. Wheat conditioners involve
four sections. The section heats the heat to the proper temperature (as heat affects
gluten quality, normally a temperature of 45 0C can not be exceeded). The second
section adds moisture and holds the wheat for the proper temperature. The third
section cools the wheat at room temperature and the final section provides a holding
bin where the moisture in wheat is allowed to equilibrate before milling.

Here all the conditioning water can be added at once. The wheat goes through the
preheat section and the cooling section in 1.5 hours or less. However, it is held in
holding bins from 8 to 18 hours the longer times being used for the harder wheat.
In one method of conditioning the wheat is heated very rapidly but the direct injection
of steam and held at a temperature of 490C for about one min. Following this, there is a
rapid cooling plunging the wheat into cold water and hence to a centrifugal machine to
remove the surface water. This method is method is extremely fast and has advantage
that the cooling process not tends to dry the bran coat since it is not done by cool air
 Wheat grinding

The grinding of whet is done between pairs of rolls. These rolls, since they are moving
opposite direction moving at different rate of speed one from the other and set with an
appreciable gap between them do not grind the wheat primarily by crushing. Rather,
the reduction of wheat size is by shearing for which because of the set of the roll runs
about 25 times faster that the slower one and at speed from 250 to 450 rpm.

Here, the roller milling area is divided into two sections, the break section and the
reduction section. In the first area system, the bran is broken open and the endosperm
is milled away. This system quit often involves from proceeding one. After each break
the moisture of free bran, free endosperm, free germ and bran containing adhering
endosperm is shifted. The bran having endosperm still attached goes to the next break
roll and the process is repeated until as much as endosperm has been separated from
the bran as is possible. The freed endosperm is section to the reduction rolls where it
is further reduced to the proper particles size for flours.

Rolls in the second system are reduction rolls which are similar to the break roll expect
that their surface is normally smooth to rather than corrugated. After each reduction of
endosperm channels which are returned to the second roll and the process is repeated.