Milling properties of peas in relation to texture analysis. Part II. Effect of pea genotype

Three smooth and three wrinkled pea varieties were evaluated for their mill ing behaviour in a classifier hit mill. Two of the smooth pea types were th e commercially available yellow peas and the other a green wild type. The w rinkled pea varieties were mutants of the smooth wild type pea. The site of the mutation was located at the gene that affects the supply of substrate during starch synthesis, which modifies the overall composition of the pea and the size distribution of starch granules. A texture analyser with a Sta nley knife set-up was used to measure the energy uptake required to split t he pea varieties at different moisture contents. These data were then compa red to the energy required to mill the same pea types in a classifier hit m ill. In general, the wrinkled mutants required more milling energy than the smooth pea varieties. A positive relationship was found between the energy uptake in the texture analyser and the milling energy for similar peas in all cases, although there were some deviations from linearity. Hence, the t exture analyser data can be used to predict milling performance. (C) 2001 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.