Effect of shear rate on microstructure and rheological properties of sheared wheat doughs

Structure formation in dough systems is the result of an interplay between processing conditions and subsequent interactions in the protein phase. These interactions can be both of a covalent (disulfide bonds) and physical nature and occur at all length scales.The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of simple shear deformation at various shear rates on wheat dough rheological properties, microstructure and GMP fraction. Shear processing was compared with a z-blade mixing. The contribution of disulfide bonds on different length scales was investigated using NEMI as SH-blocker agent.Dough strength and strain hardening decreased with the increase in shear rate leading to dough weakening. Sheared dough at low shear rate exhibited the highest strength among doughs under large deformation conditions. Mixing or shearing in the presence of NEMI strongly reduced fracture properties and GMP content of mixed and sheared doughs. Only the dough that was sheared at low shear rate still exhibited some strength and strain hardening. Large deformation results were integrated with linear viscoelastic properties using low shear rate–long time creep tests. Elastic compliance curves for reference doughs were lower than the dough containing NEMI. Shearing at low and intermediate shear rates gave similar elastic compliance. Dough rheological behaviour was interpreted in the context of polymer gels containing reversible cross-links and physical interactions.Shearing led to the formation of a heterogeneous structure. Very large protein domains were observed for dough at low shear rate, which became smaller upon higher shear rates suggesting that those structures are quite weak. When NEMI was present, large protein structures were lost more easily. The break-up of gluten domains during mixing and shearing was proposed to be a result from a different mechanism.