STARCH SWELLING POWER, GRAIN HARDNESS AND PROTEIN - RELATIONSHIP TO SENSORY PROPERTIES OF JAPANESE NOODLES

The starch swelling power tests have been reported to be a promising m ethod for predicting the eating quality of Japanese white salted noodl es. The relationships between starch swelling power and noodle eating quality were examined for a range of commercial Australian wheat culti vars from two growth seasons. Starch swelling power was found to be de pendent on the cultivar, growth site and growth season of the wheat. A nalyses of the first season's samples showed highly significant relati onships between swelling power and most noodle quality parameters (r2 = 0.16 - 0.45, P < 0.01). The inclusion of wheat protein and wheat sof tness (PSI) with starch swelling power in multiple regression equation s provided improved relationships to most noodle quality parameters (r 2 = 0.25 - 0.62, P < 0.01). When tested on data from the second growth season, the predictions were useful, especially for the noodle parame ters elasticity and eating quality.