Split milling of wheat for diverse end-use products

Split milling is a method used to blend different flour streams from a mill to produce more than one final flour, This technique is especially valuabl e in situations where only one type of wheat is available and a demand exis ts for flours with various qualities. A commercial hard red winter wheat wa s milled in a flour mill pilot plant. Each of the 23 flour streams obtained was analyzed in terms of physical, chemical, and dough rheological charact eristics. Streams were blended into four groups according to common propert ies to produce different basic flour mixes with suitable characteristics fo r producing bread, pasta, cakes, and cookies. Subsequently, combinations of different proportions of each of the basic four groups were tested for bre ad, pasta, cookie, and cake production. Test results were analyzed using th e response surface method, and an optimum combination for each product was determined. The final blend combinations comprised 53.98, 23.02, 8.02, and 14.98% of the total flour for the production of bread, pasta, cakes, and co okies, respectively. Results were confirmed by comparing final products mad e from these optimized combinations with commercial flours used as controls .