Cracked wheat

Cracked grains are whole grains that are milled into coarse particles. Cracked wheat is a wheat product made from whole wheat grains that have been cracked/ground/crushed/cut into smaller pieces, that are light brown to reddish-brown in color, with a somewhat chewy texture and nutty flavor.

It is believed to have originated in the Levant and some Mediterranean countries including Lebanon, Israel and Turkey. Currently, the popularity of this ingredient is growing throughout the world.

Cracked grains are used to prepare hot cereal, pilaf, salads, and breads. Cracked wheat can be used as meat extenders, added to breads for variety in flavor and texture, or in place of many of your favorite recipes that call for pasta, rice or barley.

Turkish burghul is parboiled whole grain wheat that has been dried then cracked or crushed. It

comes in coarse, medium, or fine grinds in texture. Bulgur has a light brown color, tender texture, and a mild flavor. It is used to make tabbouli but also great in any salads, soups and stews to add substance. It is also used to prepare hot cereal and pilaf.

Freekeh is a green grain made from young durum wheat, which is roasted or smoked then polished to remove the shells. The grain is then cracked to varying degrees of coarseness. The grains are pale green-brown in color and similar in texture to bulgur wheat. Compared to brown rice, freekeh has less calories, twice the amount of protein, close to four times the amount of fiber,
Cracked wheat

Spelt grain

Spelt is an ancient cereal grain that is a subspecies of wheat. It native to southern Europe has been widely grown in Europe. It was cultivated since approximately 5000 BC. Legend has it the grain came to Greece as a gift from the goddess of harvest, but the first documented evidence of spelt dates back to the fifth millennium BC in what is now Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. It declined in popularity during the 19th century, but it’s now making a comeback as a health food.

Spelt is a type of grain that is related to wheat, barley, and rye. Its scientific name is Triticum spelta. It is genetically purer and often tolerated better by those with wheat sensitivities but is not gluten free.

Spelt, with its mild, nutty flavor, is a popular alternative to wheat. It also provides several essential nutrients, such as iron, magnesium, and zinc.

The grain of spelt contains a tough outer covering, which is inedible. However, this hull is not removed naturally and has to be removed mechanically. Importantly, all the parts of the spelt grain, which are the endosperm, bran, and the germ, are used in milling.

People can use spelt flour in place of wheat flour in most recipes. It gives baked goods a nuttier flavor than wheat can. Prepackaged products made from spelt, such as pasta and crackers, are also popular. The Dutch distill jenever using spelt mash, and in Poland some vodkas use spelt as the base grain.
Spelt grain

Wheat gluten protein

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops worldwide, in terms of production and utilization. It is a major source of energy, protein, and dietary fibre in human nutrition and animal feeding. The ability of wheat flour to be processed into different foods is largely determined by the proteins.

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) produces one-seeded fruits, which are called grains or kernels. The pleasant flavor, long shelf-life and unique gluten forming characteristics of wheat products like pasta, noodles, bread, chapatti etc. make them very attractive among other cereals.

The wheat gluten proteins are known as the storage proteins that are found in the starchy endosperm of the grains. These proteins play a major role in the bread manufacture.

Wheat gluten is a protein that has unique properties. When hydrated and mixed, it forms a very extensible, elastic structure that is responsible for the gas-holding ability of bread dough.

Gluten comprises some 75% protein on a dry weight basis, with most of the remainder being starch and lipids. Their biological function is to provide carbon, nitrogen and energy sources for seed germination and seedling growth.

The two distinct groups of the gluten polymer that were classified reflected their solubility in 70% ethanol, namely glutenins and gliadins. The gliadins are single polypeptide chains and the glutenins are comprising polymers with subunits linked by disulphide bonds, is particularly important. Glutenins and gliadins are recognized as the major wheat storage proteins, constituting about 60-85% of the total grain proteins and they tend to be rich in asparagine, glutamine, arginine or proline but very low in nutritionally important amino acids lysine, tryptophan and methionine.

Wheat prolamins are the major storage proteins present in the starchy endosperm cells of the grain, where they are synthesized and deposited via the secretory system. Prolamins are high content of the amino acids, proline and glutamine.

The non-prolamin proteins; albumins and globulins of wheat, comprises 15-20% of total wheat flour proteins. Albumins are soluble in water and globulins are soluble in salts.

Recent discoveries found that wheat gluten can be processed into texturized vegetable protein for meat application. The popularity of texturized vegetable proteins that contain wheat proteins is rapidly increasing.
Wheat gluten protein

Molecular biology of wheat cereal

The evolution of the different types of wheat was mainly by chance by occurred with a little help from human ancestors who choose to cultivate seed from the best plants they could find in nature.

By the best what they were looking for was the variety that would give them the highest yields in their climate and on their land.

The search for the best variety is still going, but most of the wheat varieties grown today exist as the direct results of man’s intervention.

They are the results of thousands focused breeding trial in which the superior varieties are selected out of the existing genetic pool (much as our ancestors did), but these varieties are then deliberately developed into thousands of modern hybrids by using just three species (T. aestivum, T. sphaeroccum, and T. compactum).

These three species are easily “intercrossed” to form hybrids. Hybridization occurs when two varieties with desired characteristics are deliberately “chosen” to be the parents of a new variety rather than “intercrossed” by chance.

To ensure that the correct genetic combination is achieved, the breeder first removes the unripe anthers (pollen-containing organs) from one parent plant.

Next the plant s “contained” to prevent pollination from any undesirable source. As soon as the stigmas are ready to be pollinated, the breeder introduces pollen from the desired second “parent” plant.

The seed derived from this first generation hybrid are all identical, but subsequent generations will exhibit a range of characteristics from which seed the desired characteristics can be selected.

Once selected, they can be “amplified” through successive plantings into a pure genetic line.
Molecular biology of wheat cereal

History of cereal: Wheat in Finland

Together with rice and corn, wheat is one of the most widely cultivated and oldest cereals in the world. Up until the twentieth century, only limited amounts of wheat were grown in Finland, and wheat dishes were delicacies enjoyed by a select few.

Wheat emerges first in the Pre-Roman Iron Age in the Finnish material. The earliest evidence is from the dwelling site complex around the Rapola hill fort in Häme, which has been one of the most important settlement concentrations in the inland from the Pre-Roman Iron Age until the historical period.

In the warm Bronze Age club wheat was common in central Finland, but it had disappeared towards the much colder Early Iron Age (200 BC-200 AD). Both spring and winter wheat were grown in the 16th century, but both were insignificant compared to rye.

Very little wheat was grown in nineteenth-century Finland, and it could not be ground in ordinary mills. Only industrialization made wheat flour commonplace. In the Finnish foodstuffs industry, the use of rye and oats has increased, while the use of wheat has slightly decreased.
History of cereal: Wheat in Finland

Wheat crop in ancient Mesopotamia

The appearance of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent has propelled the development of Western civilization. The most important crops in Mesopotamia were wheat and barley. Farmers also grew dates, grapes, figs, melons, and apples.

The Sumerian word for wheat was “she-lib-ba,” a word meaning “the dark grain.” During the 6th millennium BC, emmer wheat was largely cultivated in the plains of Mesopotamia and western Anatolia.

Wheat reached Turkmenistan by the middle of the 6th millennium BC when early farming villages were established in the northern foothills of the Kopet Dagh Mountains.

The inhabitants of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates used mainly barley and emmer, a type of wheat, to brew their beer. Emmer wheat and also barley played a very important cultural role. In Mesopotamia “bread and beer” was the phrase corresponding to current society as “bread and water.” By the time writing was invented in Mesopotamia, brewing was already a well-established technology.

Emmer wheat is one of the three hulled wheats known in Italy as farro. It is a low yielding, awned wheat. It was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. It was widely cultivated in the ancient world.
Wheat crop in ancient Mesopotamia

Wheat in ancient Roman

Wheat was immensely important in the Roman Empire, partly because it was almost the only staple. Wheat also was the most important product and principal commodity of the Roman economy.

Their agricultural production systems were ideally suited to the sloping land and erodible soils of the Mediterranean region with hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters. It was hypothesized that the simple diet of the Romans, principally based on bread from leavened flour of wheat was a key to their success. It sustained all social classes during the eventful years of cultural transition from the Late Roman Republic to the beginning of the Empire. Wheat can be stored and transported without spoilage, and these qualities were essential for their trade and consumption in ancient Rome.

Huge amounts of wheat were needed to feed the Empire. Italy could not begin to grow enough to provide for Rome, a vast city with a population of perhaps a million. Feeding the city also had an important political dimension: since the Republic, a dole of wheat was given to each adult man who claimed it. When it was not forthcoming, there were serious riots and unrest.

Following the Third Punic War, a razed Carthage ultimately was rebuilt by the Romans as a key source of grain for Rome and its military juggernaut. The lands of the growing list of colonies became essential for wheat production, the main food source for Roman citizens and military forces.

Wheat in ancient Roman

 

Wheat in ancient world

The ancient wheats have been recognized as a primary component of the human diet in the Old World during the Bronze and Neolithic ages. Wheat is thought to have originated in southwestern Asia, it has been consumed as a food for more than 12,000 years. Archeological findings show that wheat first occurred in parts of Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, the Levant, Israel, Egypt and Ethiopia.

Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after about 8000 BC. Wild grasses resembling wheat in various degrees have been found in many parts of the world. On southwestern Europe and in Asia Minor grows Triticum aegilopoides, a wild grass which might be a parent of one species of wheat, einkorn.

Einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum) was one of the first crops domesticated approximately 12,000 years ago in the Near East, alongside emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum). Typically, einkorn was cultivated on marginal agricultural land, being able to survive in harsh environments and poor soils where other species of wheat could not survive.

Wheat was the cereal of choice for its bread making properties. Varieties of bread wheat became more common, and overtime bread became commercially available. There is evidence in Athens from the fourth century BC, in Rome from the second. Bread was normally made at home.

The early Egyptians were developers of bread and with the use of oven technology, developed baking into one of the first large-scale food production industries. By 3000 BC, wheat had reached England, and Scandinavia.

Wheat played an important role of religious significance and was part of the sacred rituals of many cultures. Greek, Roman, Sumerian and Finnish mythology had gods and goddesses of wheat. This exceptionally nutritious grain is still considered to be sacred in some areas of China.

The important of cereal in the diet throughout the Roman is confirmed by the Prices Edict (issued by Roman Emperor Diocletian in year 301 AD), which gives first place to wheat, followed by other crops. Wheat was not native to the Western Hemisphere and was only introduced here in the late 15th century when Columbus came to the New World.

Ancient wheats have lower yields and are more difficult to process than common wheat, which is why they gradually disappeared or were preserved only in small areas in Poland and Europe.
Wheat in ancient world

Gun puffed cereal

Gun puffing is another method of suddenly subjecting a product piece to a disequilibrium. In this case, the product is heated under pressure in a close vessel. The most commonly used cereals for production of puffed grains are wheat and rice.

In order to make shape for puffing one must cook the grain formulation, form it in a forming extruder into the desired shape, dry the shapes to a very narrow moisture range and temper them. All this must be accomplished before gun puffing can take place.

When the vessel is suddenly opened, a violent decompression causes moisture to flash, inflating the product in much the same way as in direct expansion puffing.

Regular white or parboiled rice with less than 0.5% fat is commonly gun puffed. Rice has excellent expansion characteristics because of its starch properties.
Gun puffed cereal

Hard wheat: definition and meaning

Wheats in the soft wheat class are softer than those of the hard wheat class. The terms ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ as applied to wheats are descriptions of the texture of the wheat kernel.

Hard wheat has a kernel that is high in protein and gluten content. Grain hardness is a character of particular interest the milling and baking industry. Hardness of wheat is a result of the strength of the adhesion between starch and protein in the endosperm.

Durum wheat is a hard wheat, grown mainly in the spring, and is generally milled into a coarser meal (called semolina) rather than flour, though durum flour is an inevitable byproduct of semolina.

Semolina is used chiefly for making macaroni, spaghetti vermicelli, and similar pasta products. Hard wheats result in more damaged starch than soft wheats in the milling process.

In bread, this damage largely contributes to the soft texture and the gentle pleasant mouth feel of the crumb; mover starch damage has a retarding effect on the bread going stale.
Hard wheat: definition and meaning

What is frosted wheat?

Frosted wheat refers to wheat that has been damaged by heavy frost. This effect occurs only in the northern states and Canada principally in areas growing spring wheat. Growers frequently minimize frost risk by delayed panting and using longer-season varieties which delays flowering beyond the most significant frost risk periods.

The extent of the damage caused by heavy frost is dependent on the maturity of the kernels. If the grain is nearly ripened (stiff dough stage), the damage from freezing is slight.

Heavy frost occurring when wheat is still immature in the field will cause blistering of the bran and often discoloration of the kernel.

When the entire seed coat is badly affected produces of a flour of poor dough quality and is unsatisfactory for the production of good bread. The ash content of the flour also is likely to be abnormally high.
What is frosted wheat?

Five classes of common American wheat

Five principle classes of wheat are commonly grown in North America:
Hard Red Winter 
This wheat is grown in large quantities. It has moderately high protein content and used for bread. Hard Red Winter Wheat mostly grown in the central and southern Great plain.

Soft Red Winter Wheat 

Used for cakes and pastries. This wheat grows in the eastern and southeastern states of United States.

Hard Red Spring Wheat 
This wheat has the highest protein content of North American wheat and is used for manufacturing bread. It grows mainly in northern Great Plains.

White Wheat 
This wheat is suitable for pastry flour. It grows in New York, Michigan and the Pacific Coast states.

Durum wheat  
Grow in North Dakota and other northern Plains states.  This is the hardest of the five wheat classes. It is for spaghetti

Five classes of common American wheat

Defects and impurities of wheat

During harvesting and postharvest handling and storage of wheat at the farm, it becomes exposed to a wide range of foreign matter comprised of various types of seeds such as oats, barley, wild oats, corn, pea, flax, rapeseed, mustard, wild buckwheat and such.

In remote areas certain countries high levels of impurities such as sand or dust result from manual harvesting,

Quality attribute are measured using a multitude of specific tests designed or provide information on the various characteristics of grain.

These include the measurement for conditions such as kernel density; moisture; damage, broken or split kernels; impurities and other visual defects.

Wheat and other cereal grains are subject to government inspection and grading. In establishing the grain grades for wheat, certain defects and impurities in wheat have been identified as definitely affecting the yield and quality of the wheat.

With a proper grading system in place, as in major grain-exporting countries, tolerance level for all the factors listed as part of the grading factors is established. The grade-determining factors should be those that relate to sanitary quality purity, and soundness (absence of imperfections).

Consequently, it is important to consider some of the causes of these defects and their effect on the quality of wheat.
Defects and impurities of wheat

Wheat fungal disease

Before harvest, wheat may be infected with a fungal disease (rust) caused by a species of genus Puccinia.

Fungi disperse by releasing microscopic spores that travel in the wind. A wheat stem rust infection begins when a fungal spore lands on the leaf of a wheat plant. The spore germinates and becomes active, and a fungal grows into the plant.

As fungal filaments extend to the plant’s tissues through a stoma, the filaments take up photosynthetic sugars that the plant would normally use to meet its own needs.

Rust infection in wheat plants results in the production of kernels that are usually wrinkled, shrunken and light weight. Thus the yield per acre of a result-infected crop is slower than that of a healthy crop, and often the quality of its flour is reduced.

This problem can be best controlled through use of rust-resistant strains. Worldwide use of rust-resistant wheat provided a respite from outbreaks of wheat stem rust for decades. It should be noted, however, that rusts exist in many different forms and from time to time new rust forms occur to which hitherto resistant wheat strains may be susceptible.
Wheat fungal disease

Shredded wheat

Shredded wheat one of the oldest mass-produced breakfast cereals, is still an important product. Soft white wheat is the primary grain used.

Other classes of wheat, as well as other cereal grains such as rice, corn, or oats or mixtures thereof, can also be used to make shredded products.

Shredded wheat was patented in 1893 by Henry D. Perky of Colorado and William Ford of Watertown, New York. The year before Henry Perky traveled to Watertown, New York, to work with an air-brake designer named William Ford on corn cereal, but discovered instead a process for pressing wheat into shreds that could be formed into biscuits.

These he called shredded wheat and he returned to Denver to open a bakery and restaurant and to sell the item door to door by wagon.

During shredding, wheat is cooked until the entire endosperm is translucent. After cooking and cooling, the grain is held for about 24 hours.

The wheat is the squeezed between two rollers, one of which is grooved. Multiple sets of roller are used to lay down multiple layers of shreds. The shreds are then cut into biscuits and bake.
Shredded wheat 

San Remo Macaroni

San Remo Macaroni is Australia’s largest manufacturer of pasta products and the major buyer of durum wheat, which is used to make pasta, in SA. In 1939 Francesco Borgia took on as his partner Luigi Crotti and the name was changed to Sovrana Macaroni Co.

After the war the partner set up separate pasta businesses, Borgia Bros, in Gouger Street and Pasta San Remo in North Adelaide, a company established by Luigi Crotti with the assistance of his son Aldo.

Today San Remo Macaroni Company Pty Ltd remains a family-owned 100% Australian company. San Remo has drawn on its Italian heritage and through their commitment to using quality produce and a combination of strategic marketing and modern technology, created the Australasian market for pasta.

San Remo proudly holds today with its ever increasing range of pasta products and sauces exported to more than 36 countries including Italy, the home of pasta.

San Remo’s manufacturing site in Adelaide combines traditional Italian pasta making know-how with the most modern technology. San Remo produces 350 pasta products and has also owned the Balfours baking business since 2008.
San Remo Macaroni

Gradual reduction system in wheat milling process

Milling is the most common processing technique for wheat grains for human consumption. Roller mill is the primary technology used for milling wheat into flour.

The technology is a gradual reduction system so that damage to the components of wheat is minimized during four milling.

The gradual reduction system of flour milling is the process of taking the whole wheat berry and via a series of grinding and sieving stages, producing white flour of the desired quality and yield. This gradual reduction is done to control the level of starch damage.

The gradual reduction system has enabled the production of flours of low ash content and high yield. Specialist, high quality flours are produced by extracting high purity sub-products from within the process.

Many variations in the detail of the process flow sheet emerged in the years after the perfection of the gradual reduction system. This was due to the varying requirements of customers and even political directives.
Gradual reduction system in wheat milling process

Wheat product: bagel

Bagels are a doughnut-shaped yeast roll with a dense, chewy texture and shiny crust. It is also fine grained.

The long standing myth is the bagel was created by a local baker to celebrate the victory of Poland’s King Jan III Sobiesky over the Ottoman Turks in 1683, and was given the trade name of buegel.

The bagels are boiled in water before they are baked. It will them characteristics firm, chewy interior. Industrial bagels may not be boiled and may have a soft crumb.

The hole made the bagel easy to transport, slipping it on a rod or a rope – the way that it was thought to be originally carried. Although plain bagels are popular, many bagel bakeries make plain, poppy seed, sesame seed, garlic, onion, cinnamon raisin, egg, salt, everything bagels and so on.

The traditional way to enjoy a bagel is with lox or smoked salmon and cream cheese.

Bagels came to America in the late 19th century along with Eastern European immigrants. The bagel was modified in America to its present form, which is generally thicker than its European antecedents.
Wheat product: bagel

What is celiac disease?

Celiac disease also known as celiac sprue, non-tropical sprue, and gluten-sensitive enteropathy, is a condition in which consuming gluten a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and some other grains.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder. When human eat these grains, immune system responds by causing inflammation and damaging the small intestine.

What is gluten? Technically gluten is made up of the proteins glutenin and alpha gliadin, a specific type of prolamins in wheat. However, gluten has become a general term for any kind of potentially harmful prolamins.

Prolamins are the proteins in wheat, barley and rye that are harmful to persons with celiac disease. Wheat, rye, and barley prolamins are called gliadin, secalin and hordein, respectively.

The typical form of celiac disease presents with gastrointestinal symptoms typically between 6 and 24 months of age.

Symptoms begin at various time intervals after the introduction of gluten in the diet, also depending on its amount and on other environmental factors.

The key to successfully managing celiac disease is the complete elimination of gluten from the diet.
What is celiac disease?

Food crop of wheat

Wheat was established food crop at the dawn of history. It probably originated from grasses native to the Middle East, but cultivation of bread wheat was common in Europe by the time of the Greek and Roman Empires, and wheat was brought to America by the earliest explorers. It is grown in temperate zones around the world and on some part of every continent except Antarctica.

The principle species of wheat are Triticum vulgae or bread wheat: T.durum, which has extra hard kennels used primarily for macaroni and related pasta products; and T.compactum or club wheat, which has very soft kernels.

These are numerous varieties and cultivars within each species. Wheat is also classified in the United Sates according to whether is hard or soft, white or red, and planted in winter or spring. It is also graded according to such criteria as test weight.

It is also graded according to such criteria as test weight per bushel and content of damaged kernels, foreign materials, and wheat of other classes.
Food crop of wheat