Evaluation of milling methods and pulse seed pre-treatments (moisture conditioning and mechanical scouring) on pulse flour characterization
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Date
2022-01-16
Authors
Choo, Kristin
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Abstract
Dry legumes and pulses are becoming highly valued in food processing due to their usage as highly nutritious and functional food ingredients. Pulse flour utilization in a wide variety of food applications (e.g. breads, pastas, noodles, cookies) is extensively reported in published literature. It has been frequently established that food products containing pulse flours are acceptable in taste and increasingly desired by today’s health-conscious consumer. However, due to the high proprietary nature of pulse flour production, little is understood about pulse flour milling and the associated flour quality. The aim of this thesis was to determine if the quality of compositional (moisture, protein, ash), functional (water-holding capacity), and physical (L*a*b* colour, particle size distribution) flour properties of green lentil, yellow pea, chickpea, and navy bean cultivars would be impacted by the type of milling method used (single-stream (Ferkar mill) and gradual reduction (roller mill)). In addition, properties of green lentil and chickpea flours were analyzed after they were pre-treated to varying moisture conditioning levels (0%, 0.5%, or 1% w/w) and mechanically scoured prior to being roller milled. The roller milling method produced green lentil, yellow pea, and navy bean flours that were more uniform and refined compared with Ferkar milling. Roller milling generally produced brighter flours, which was most evident for green lentil. Effects of the seed pre-treatments (i.e. moisture conditioning and scouring) were found statistically significant (P<0.05) for several of the flour properties. However, the results showed that these differences were very small between the pre-treatment conditions, indicating that seed moisture conditioning and scouring do not strongly affect the quality of roller milled legume flours. The key findings establish that the type of flour milling method affects pulse flour quality, and that each pulse cultivar responds differently to the milling process.
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Keywords
Pulses, Dry legumes, Milling, Flour quality, Nutritional composition, Functional properties, Physical properties, Moisture conditioning, Scouring