Mühlenchemie is to offer its customers a new service: from now on, mills can have their wheat lots tested for their baking properties at the trial bakery in Ahrensburg. That saves time, says the company, because the need for optimisation can be recognised before the flour is produced on a commercial scale. The flour improvement specialist has invested in a test mill that it says is able to simulate the processes otherwise confined to industrial mills.
Today’s fluctuating grain qualities compel the milling industry to seek individual solutions for flour improvement, according to Mühlenchemie. Putting off the search for these until the grain is actually being ground results in extra costs through rejected batches and time wasted in finding a suitable solution - so it is important to determine as early as possible what baking properties different lots of wheat will have after milling. With the aid of the new pilot mill, the company says that millers can now have the quality of the raw material and its effect on baking properties analysed by Mühlenchemie under realistic conditions.
One option is to have samples of wheat tested and evaluated in Ahrensburg before purchase or delivery so that flour improvement measures can be recommended and carried out as soon as possible.
“With the new pilot mill, Mühlenchemie now offers an all-round service”, said managing director Lennart Kutschinski. “We can simulate practically any milling process from anywhere in the world in order to offer optimal individual recommendations for use. And that enables us to start giving advice even sooner.”
The pilot mill used in Ahrensburg is said to be one of the most advanced models for soft wheat on the market. The grain is ground in stages, in six passages. Capacity is 10 kg per hour. The level of extraction can be varied as required by adjusting the grinding gap and the sieve cover. The results of this milling are practically identical to those of an industrial mill, which means that suitable solutions can be developed in the laboratory, said the company. The flour is then subjected to baking trials in order to achieve optimum results from flour analysis to product development.
