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Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx

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Rheological characterisation of gluten from extensibility measurement

D.N. Abang Zaidel a, N.L. Chin b,*, R. Abdul Rahman c, R. Karim c
a
Department of Bioprocess Engineering, Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
b
Department of Process and Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
c
Department of Food Technology, Faculty of Food Science and Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Received 25 June 2007; received in revised form 5 October 2007; accepted 8 November 2007

Abstract

A simple tensile test set-up was built and attached to an Instron 5566 to determine gluten extensibility, comparing the performance of
strong and weak flour mixed for various mixing time. In this work, the gluten strip was clamped at two ends and extended upward at the
centre by a hook at speed of 300 mm min1. Parameters such as gluten length at fracture, measured force, actual force acting on the
gluten strips, strain, strain rate and stress were obtained. Gluten obtained from strong flour has greater extensibility compared to weak
flour. The extensibility of gluten from both strong and weak flour dough increased as dough mixing time increased before decreasing at a
peak of 8 min. The results demonstrated the capability of the tensile test set-up to describe the development of gluten during mixing of
dough. Rheological characteristic of gluten indicated that gluten exhibited strain hardening effect during extension.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Curve-fitting; Extensibility; Gluten; Strain hardening; Tensile test

1. Introduction Anderssen et al., 2004; Tronsmo et al., 2003) and they

Gluten is a cross-link of protein network developed dur-
ing mixing of flour–water dough. By washing the dough
under running water, the starch is removed and the remain-
ing viscoelastic mass obtained is gluten. Nowadays, the
uses of gluten in industry have been intensely applied in
various food and non-food applications. Day et al. (2006)
reported that due to the unique cohesive properties of glu-
ten, it has become a commercial material in food industry
including bakery, breakfast cereals, noodles, sausages and
also meat substitute. Its application has been expanding
to other sectors such as pet food, aquaculture feed, natural
adhesives and also as biodegradable films.
Rheological properties of gluten are always being con-
nected to the quality of its end product: textural attributes,
shape and expansion (Amemiya and Menjivar, 1992;
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 3 89466353; fax: +60 3 86567123.
E-mail address: chinnl@eng.upm.edu.my (N.L. Chin).
had been studied in terms of small and large deformation
measurements (Amemiya and Menjivar, 1992; Janssen
et al., 1996; Uthayakumaran et al., 2002; Tronsmo et al.,
2003). However, gluten quality measurement using large
deformation is more suitable for testing gluten application
as food product as it can be related to its eating quality. A
material is subjected to a large deformation when the stress
exceeds the yield value. A commonly adapted method for
large deformation testing of dough and gluten is extension.
Various instruments are available in performing the exten-
sion of dough and gluten such as the extensograph, texture
analyser and Instron. In this test, the sample was clamped
at two ends and pulled or extended by a hook at the centre
of the sample at a constant strain rate. Large deformation
is applied to the sample until it fractured and the material is
unable to regain the original shape. In the past, many
works were done on extensibility of gluten and dough using
attachments on the Universal Testing Machine such as the
texture analyser and Instron (Kieffer et al., 1998; Tronsmo
et al., 2003; Dunnewind et al., 2004; Sliwinski et al.,

0260-8774/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.005

Please cite this article in press as: Abang Zaidel, D.N. et al., Rheological characterisation of gluten from extensibility measurement,
Journal of Food Engineering (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.005
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2 D.N. Abang Zaidel et al. / Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx
Nomenclature
Ao original cross-sectional area of gluten (mm2)
At final cross-sectional area of gluten (mm2)
d distance (gap) between the two clips (mm)
Fa actual force (N)
Fm measured force (N)
lo gluten original length (mm)
lt gluten final length at fracture (mm)
Vo original volume of gluten (mm3)
2004a,b). Tronsmo et al. (2003) performed a uniaxial
extension on dough and gluten using the Kieffer dough
and gluten extensibility rig for the TA.TX2i texture ana-
lyser to test the rheological properties. They used six differ-
ent wheat flours to study the difference in the breadmaking
performance and determined the maximum resistance to
extension and total extensibility. Another extensional
instrument used to determine the extensibility of wheat
flour dough was Sentmanat Extensional Rheometer
(SER) (Trevor et al., 2006). In this test, a rectangular
dough sample was mounted onto two cylindrical drums
and was stretched until it fractured.
The main problem encountered in performing gluten
and dough extensibility tests is to hold the sample so that
it breaks within the sample and not at the jaws that hold
the sample. This paper focuses on gluten extensibility mea-
surement using a new tensile test set-up attached to Instron
(5566 series, Instron Corporation, USA) and also its rheo-
logical characterisation. Using this set-up, gluten extensi-
bility was determined by studying the effect of various
mixing times on the development of gluten during dough
mixing. Four rheological characteristics were determined:
fracture strain, fracture stress, the coefficient, k and index,
n. Fracture strain and fracture stress are the points when
gluten fractured at its maximum extensibility. k and n,
which indicate the extensional stiffness and strain harden-
ing of gluten respectively, were determined from curve-fit-
ting of stress–strain curve following exponential equation,
r = kene. Previous studies on biaxial extension of dough
(Chin and Campbell, 2005; Dobraszczyk et al., 2003) fit
the stress–strain curves following the exponential equation
to obtain k and n.
Mixing time is one of the processing factors that influ-
ence the gluten development during mixing other than
work input, mixer type and temperature. The molecular
model proposed by Belton (1999) and Létang et al.
(1999) suggested that at early stage of mixing, gluten fibrils
are formed as the water is in contact with flour particles.
Water is responsible in hydrating the protein fibrils and
started the interactions between the proteins cross-links
with the disulphide bonds. Too much water added to the
flour will result in slurry and too little water results in
slightly cohesive powder (Faubion and Hoseney, 1989).
Please cite this article in press as: Abang Zaidel, D.N. et al., Rheological characterisation of gluten from extensibility measurement,
Journal of Food Engineering (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.005
Vt final volume of gluten (mm3)
yo gluten original position (mm)
yt final hook displacement at gluten fracture (mm)
a angle of deformation (°)
eH Hencky strain (dimensionless)
e_ strain rate (s1)
r stress (N mm2)
Thus, optimum water level must be used in developing
cohesive, viscoelastic dough with optimum gluten
strength. As mixing proceeds, more protein become
hydrated and the glutenins tend to align because of the
shear and stretching forces imposed. At this stage, gluten
networks are more developed by the cross-linking of pro-
tein with disulphide bonds. At optimum dough develop-
ment, the interactions between the polymers cross-links
become stronger and that leads to an increased dough
strength, maximum resistance to extension and restoring
force after deformation. When the dough is mixed past
its optimum development, the cross-links begin to break
due to the breaking of disulphide bonds. The glutenins
become depolymerised and the dough is overmixed.
The presence of smaller chains in the dough makes the
dough stickier. Two types of flour were used in this
study as different wheat flour has different optimum mix-
ing time (Hoseney, 1985). Longer mixing time is expected
for mixing dough from strong flour. It is probably due
to the dense particles of strong flour through which
water penetrates slowly (Hoseney, 1985). Sliwinski et al.
(2004a) reported that a positive correlation was observed
between mixing time and the percentage of glutenin pro-
tein on total protein in flour. The effect of mixing time
on the rheological properties of gluten has been investi-
gated by Amemiya and Menjivar (1992), Janssen et al.
(1996) and Létang et al. (1999).
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Dough preparation
Two types of flour, Diamond N (12.33% protein) and
SP-3 (8.81% protein), were used in this study and they
are referred as strong and weak flour, respectively.
Doughs were prepared by mixing 200 g flour with water
(63.4% for strong flour; 59.5% for weak flour) in mixer
(5K5SS, KitchenAid, Belgium) for various mixing times:
3, 5, 8, 11 and 15 min. Treated drinking water was used
to avoid any effect or reaction from other minerals on
the protein of flour during flour–water mixing. Dough
was left to stand in water for 1 h at room temperature
to rest (AACC, 1976).
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D.N. Abang Zaidel et al. / Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx 3

2.2. Gluten washing and preparation

a
Rested dough was washed under running tap water at Plastic clips
flow rate of 2.5–2.8 ml s1 to remove starch until gluten Wood platform
was obtained. At the end of the washing, 1–2 drops of Rubber
water from the gluten was squeezed into a container con- 40mm Hook
taining clear water (AACC, 1976). Starch is assumed Gluten strip
absent if cloudiness did not appear. As described in the
work by Abang Zaidel et al. (2007), the gluten, dried
between dry cloths, was shaped into a ball shape and
pressed to a thickness of 10 mm (Fig. 1b) with the palm.
Then, a paper clip with 10 mm gap was used to press onto
b
the gluten to print 10 mm width strips (Fig. 1a) as guide for Upper part
cutting using a paper cutter. Finally, the strips were cut to Lower of clip
70 mm length. The 10  10  70 mm gluten strips of part of
approximately 5.5 ± 0.5 g were immersed in tap water at clip
room temperature and left for 30 min to rest (Chen et al., 10 mm
1998; Chiang et al., 2006).

2.3. Tensile test

The rested gluten strip was then clamped at two ends
using plastic clips arranged at 40 mm distance nailed to a
15.2 cm  21.6 cm wood platform cut according to the size
of the Instron base platform. The wood was held tightly to
the Instron platform using a G-clamp. As described in
Abang Zaidel et al. (2007), the tensile test set-up consists
of a hook bent into a V-shaped using metal rod of
3.2 mm diameter and fitted to the Instron (5566 series,
Instron Corporation, USA) as shown in Fig. 2. The clip
was set 10 mm above the wood plane for easy opening of
the clamps when placing the gluten strips. To prevent the
gluten strip from resting on the platform in between the
two clips, the hook level was adjusted to match the level
Fig. 2. Tensile test set-up diagram from (a) top and (b) cross-sectional
view.
of the clips as shown in Fig. 2b. The tensile test starts as
the gluten was pulled up by the hook at speed of
300 mm min1 and stops when the gluten fractured. Three
replicates were performed and the error bars are the stan-
dard deviation of the means. Fig. 3 shows the tensile test
of a gluten strip extended by a hook at the centre. Mea-
sured force (Fm) is exerted on the gluten at a vertical axis.
Extensibility parameters, such as the original length of glu-
ten (lo), the final length of gluten at fracture (lt) and actual
force (Fa), and rheological parameters, such as strain (eH),
strain rate (_e) and stress (r), were determined.

2.3.1. Derivation of extensibility parameters

a Gluten strips Eq. (1) is used to determine the original length of gluten
(lo) before being extended. d is 40 mm in this study. The
final length of gluten at fracture (lt) was calculated using
3 2 1 Eq. (2):
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
70mm 2 2
lo ¼ 2 ðd=2Þ þ ðy o Þ ð1Þ
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 2
lt ¼ 2 ðd=2Þ þ ðy o þ y t Þ ð2Þ
Assuming that the hook is placed at the centre of the gap,
the measured force (Fm) was divided equally over both
10mm stretched gluten at each side of the hook (Dunnewind
b Paper clip et al., 2004). The actual force (Fa) that acted upon the
stretched gluten was determined using the Eq. (4) while
Gluten
Eq. (3) shows the expression of the angle of deformation
(a) in terms of the measured and actual force which acted
10mm upon the gluten.
F m =2 y t þ y o
sin a ¼ ¼ ð3Þ
10mm Fa lt =2
F m lt
Fig. 1. Gluten cutting using paper clip from (a) top and (b) cross-sectional Fa ¼ ð4Þ
view. 4ðy t þ y o Þ

Please cite this article in press as: Abang Zaidel, D.N. et al., Rheological characterisation of gluten from extensibility measurement,
Journal of Food Engineering (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.005
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4 D.N. Abang Zaidel et al. / Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx

Fm Original gluten strip

Gluten strip at fracture
Fa
yt Fa lt/2 yo = gluten original position (mm)
α yt = final hook displacement (mm)
lo/2 α = angle of deformation ( )
o

α d = distance (gap) between two clips (mm)

yo Fm = measured force (N)
d Fa = actual force (N)

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of forces acting on gluten and the length of gluten during tensile test (Dunnewind et al., 2004).

2.3.2. Derivation of rheological parameters (ANOVA), at alpha level = 0.05 (P < 0.05), was performed
The extension parameters obtained earlier were used to using a statistical software, Design Expert (Version 6.0.4,
determine the rheological parameters such as strain, strain State-Ease Inc., Minneapolis, USA). The force-extension
rate and stress. The Hencky strain (eH) acting on gluten graphs were plotted from data obtained from Instron
was calculated using the Eq. (5): which were also used to calculate the extensibility parame-
0qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi1 ters. Curves of strain-hook displacement, strain rate-hook
  2 2
lt B ðd=2Þ þ ðy o þ y t Þ C displacement and stress–strain were obtained to study the
eH ¼ ln ¼ ln @ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi A ð5Þ performance of the tensile test set-up.
lo
ðd=2Þ2 þ ðy o Þ2
3. Results and discussion
The strain rate was calculated by differentiating of Hencky
strain (_e) with time as shown in Eq. (6):
3.1. Dough and gluten preparation
deH dl 1 2ðy t þ y o Þ dy
e_ ¼ ¼ ffi t
¼  qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
dt lt dt lt 2 2 dt Observations made during washing of gluten shows that
9 þ ðy t þ y o Þ
washing time to obtain starch-free gluten for strong flour
4vðy t þ y o Þ was longer than weak flour. This suggests that washing
¼ ð6Þ
l2t time is influenced by the flour type and its protein content.
With the same dough dimensions before washing, the
where v is the speed of hook (mm min1). The final cross-
weight of gluten obtained from strong flour was slightly
sectional area of gluten strip was calculated by assuming
higher compared to weak flour. This explains that the
the volume of gluten was constant throughout the test
quantity of wet gluten is higher from a higher protein con-
(Muller et al., 1961; Sliwinski et al., 2004a) as provided
tent flour (Ćurić et al., 2001).
in the Eq. (7).

Vo ¼Vt 3.2. Extensibility analysis

Ao lo ¼ At lt
Ao lo
At ¼
lt
where Vo is the original volume of gluten (mm3), Vt is the
final volume of gluten (mm3), Ao is the original cross-sec-
tional area of gluten (mm2) and At is the final cross-sec-
tional area of gluten (mm2). From the Eq. (8), the stress
(r) acted on the gluten was calculated by dividing the ac-
tual force (Fa) with the final cross-sectional area of gluten
strip (At).
Fa
r¼
At
2.4. Data analysis
The experiments were conducted in triplicates. Mean
and standard deviation were calculated using Microsoft
Excel. The error bars in the graphs are the standard devia-
tion of the means of three replications. Analysis of variance
ð7Þ The gluten extensibility analyses are presented in two
sections, i.e., the effect of mixing time on the gluten exten-
sibility and rheological characterisation of gluten.
3.2.1. Effect of mixing time on gluten extensibility
Fig. 4a and b shows the typical measured force-hook
displacement curves for gluten from strong and weak flour
mixed for various mixing time. For both flours, an increase
of force was observed with increasing hook displacement
and it decreased after reaching a peak. A similar trend
was reported in previous studies for gluten and dough in
ð8Þ uniaxial extension tests (Dunnewind et al., 2004; Sliwinski
et al., 2004a,b), even though the dimensions of the gluten
or dough sample used were different. At all mixing times,
gluten extensibility showed similar patterns of increasing
force with increasing hook displacement reaching a maxi-
mum before decreasing. From the curves, gluten from
strong flour gave higher force and hook extension than
weak flour for all mixing times. This suggests that the
strong flour has stronger protein network and gluten

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D.N. Abang Zaidel et al. / Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx 5

a 1.6 b 1.6
2 min 2 min
5 min 5 min
8 min 8 min
1.2 11 min 1.2 11 min
15 min 15 min

Fm (N)

Fm (N)
0.8 0.8

0.4 0.4

0.0 0.0
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
y t (mm) y t (mm)

Fig. 4. Measured force-hook displacement curves for gluten from doughs mixed using (a) strong and (b) weak flour at various mixing times.

400 Fig. 6 shows that the strain of gluten increased with

Strong increasing hook displacement. The strain increase was
350 Weak higher at the beginning of gluten extension from the
decreasing slopes in the strain curves. For strong flour,
300 the gluten mixed for 8 min gave the highest value of strain
l t (mm).

250
200
150
0 4 8 12
Mixing time (min)
Fig. 5. The gluten length at fracture from doughs mixed for various
mixing times.
strength as influenced by the flour protein content (Ćurić
et al., 2001).
Fig. 5 shows the effects of various mixing times on glu-
ten extensibility. The length of gluten at fracture (lt)
increased as mixing time increased, reaching a peak before
it decreased in further mixing indicating a typical dough
development process. Gluten from both flours, mixed for
8 min gave the highest value of lt. This suggests that dough
mixed for 8 min reached the optimum development and at
this stage, the interactions between the polymers cross-links
became strong and leads to an increased dough strength,
maximum resistance to extension and restoring force after
deformation (Létang et al., 1999). Gluten mixed for times
exceeding 8 min had lower extensibility values. Létang
et al. (1999) explained that when the dough is mixed longer
past its optimum development, the cross-links begin to
break due to the breaking of disulphide bonds and the
glutenins becomes depolymerised and overmixed. Table 1
shows the extensibility of gluten of strong and weak flour
mixed for various mixing times at optimum water level.
Analysis of variance shows that the effect of mixing time
on gluten extensibility was more significant for the strong
flour gluten (P < 0.003) than the weak flour gluten
(P < 0.37).
but it was not obvious for the weak flour. The curves of
strain rate versus hook displacement in Fig. 7 shows that
as the hook displacement increased, the strain rate
increased up to a peak before decreasing as the hook dis-
placed further. Glutens from weak flour gave higher strain
16 rates compared to glutens from the strong flour for all the
mixing times.
3.2.2. Rheological characterisation
Fig. 8 illustrates the stress–strain curves of glutens
obtained from strong and weak doughs mixed for various
mixing times. The stress increased with increasing strain
with maximum values at sample fracture. The gradient of
the curve is related to the modulus of gluten. The curves
displayed a curvature up to fracture indicating that the
modulus increased with extension. This behaviour is
known as strain hardening, where the force to extend the
material needs to increase for additional strain to occur
and the stress increases more than proportional with the
strain (Sliwinski et al., 2004c). This result was also reported
in previous studies on uniaxial extension test on dough and
gluten (Sliwinski et al., 2004a,b,c) and biaxial extension of
dough (Janssen et al., 1996; Chin and Campbell, 2005; Sli-
winski et al., 2004b). Trevor et al. (2006) reported that
strain hardening occurred at high strain rates where the
stress increases more rapidly than linearly with the strain.
The failure stress and strain were obtained from the
stress–strain values at gluten fracture. Fig. 9a and b show
that for both flours, the failure stress and strain increased
as the mixing time increased to 8 min before started
decreasing. This agrees with Fig. 5 showing gluten mixed
for 8 min reaching its optimum development. At this stage,
the interactions between the polymers cross-links become
strong and it leads to increased dough strength, maximum
resistance to extension and restoring force after deforma-

Please cite this article in press as: Abang Zaidel, D.N. et al., Rheological characterisation of gluten from extensibility measurement,
Journal of Food Engineering (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.005
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6 D.N. Abang Zaidel et al. / Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Extensibility parameters of gluten at fracture from strong and weak flour at various mixing times
Flour Mixing time (min) yt (mm) Fm (N) lt (mm) Fa (N) eH e_ (s1) r (N mm2)
Strong 2 136.1 ± 5.6 1.40 ± 0.21 287.0 ± 11.0 0.71 ± 0.06 1.93 ± 0.04 2.08 ± 0.08 0.0489 ± 0.0058
5 136.1 ± 2.8 1.41 ± 0.16 287.0 ± 5.5 0.71 ± 0.05 1.93 ± 0.02 2.07 ± 0.04 0.0491 ± 0.0043
8 172.2 ± 5.6 1.43 ± 0.26 358.7 ± 11.0 0.72 ± 0.08 2.15 ± 0.03 1.86 ± 0.05 0.0618 ± 0.0059
11 140.3 ± 9.1 1.37 ± 0.14 295.3 ± 18.1 0.69 ± 0.04 1.95 ± 0.06 2.03 ± 0.12 0.0490 ± 0.0053
15 137.5 ± 7.2 1.49 ± 0.08 289.8 ± 14.3 0.77 ± 0.02 1.93 ± 0.05 2.09 ± 0.10 0.0523 ± 0.0038
Weak 2 90.3 ± 2.8 0.57 ± 0.04 196.7 ± 5.4 0.29 ± 0.02 1.55 ± 0.03 2.99 ± 0.08 0.0137 ± 0.0008
5 83.3 ± 4.8 0.58 ± 0.05 183.1 ± 9.4 0.30 ± 0.03 1.48 ± 0.05 3.21 ± 0.16 0.0131 ± 0.0012
8 97.2 ± 2.8 0.91 ± 0.07 210.3 ± 5.5 0.46 ± 0.04 1.62 ± 0.03 2.80 ± 0.07 0.0234 ± 0.0023
11 94.4 ± 7.3 0.78 ± 0.09 204.9 ± 14.4 0.40 ± 0.05 1.59 ± 0.07 2.90 ± 0.19 0.0193 ± 0.0015
15 94.4 ± 5.6 0.84 ± 0.05 204.9 ± 10.9 0.43 ± 0.02 1.59 ± 0.05 2.89 ± 0.16 0.0210 ± 0.0020
± Standard deviation of mean of three replicates.

a 2.5 b 2.5

2.0 2.0

1.5 Strain 1.5

Strain

1.0 2 min 1.0

5 min 2 min
8 min 5 min
0.5 11 min 0.5 8 min
15 min 11 min
15 min
0.0 0.0
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
y t (mm) y t (mm)

Fig. 6. Strain versus hook displacement for gluten from doughs mixed using (a) strong and (b) weak flour at various mixing times.

a 8 b 8

2 min
5 min 2 min
6 6 5 min
8 min
8 min
Strain rate (s-1)

Strain rate (s-1)

11 min
15 min 11 min
15 min
4 4

2 2

0 0
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
yt (mm) yt (mm)

Fig. 7. Strain rate versus hook displacement for gluten from doughs mixed using (a) strong and (b) weak flour at various mixing times.

tion (Létang et al., 1999). Failure stress and strain for
strong flour gluten were higher than weak flour gluten
for all mixing times (Sliwinski et al., 2004b). Coefficient,
k and index, n were determined by fitting the stress–strain
curves using an exponential equation, r = kene. The coeffi-
cient of determination (R2) of the fitted stress obtained for
various mixing times was in the range of 0.91–0.99 as pre-
sented in Fig. 8. Fig. 9c and d show that k increased and
then decreased with mixing time while n shows an opposite
trend from k. The strong flour seems to have a slight fall in
the n value for 15 min mixing. k value for weak flour was
higher than strong flour and the opposite was found for
n value which is also reported for biaxial extension study
of dough (Chin and Campbell, 2005). Higher k values in
the weak flour gluten compared to the strong flour gluten
suggest that the earlier was extensionally stiffer. Higher n
value was found in strong flour explains that the strong
flour gluten exhibit higher strain hardening properties than

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D.N. Abang Zaidel et al. / Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx 7

a 0.08 b 0. 08
2 min R2= 0.9987 2 min R 2= 0.9943
5 min R2= 0.9993 5 min R 2= 0.9827
0.06 8 min R2= 0.9355 0. 06 8 min R 2= 0.9933
11 min R2= 0.9796

Stress (N mm-2)
11 min R 2= 0.9960

Stress (N mm-2)
15 min R2= 0.9988 15 min R 2= 0.9168
0.04 0. 04

0.02 0. 02

0.00 0. 00
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Strain Strain

Fig. 8. Stress–strain curves for gluten from doughs mixed using (a) strong and (b) weak flour at various mixing times.

a 2.5 b 0.08
strong strong
weak weak

Failure stress (N mm-2)

0.06
2.0
Failure strain

0.04

1.5
0.02

1.0 0.00
0 4 8 12 16 0 4 8 12 16
Mixing time (min) Mixing time (min)

c 0.0025 d 3.0
strong strong
0.0020 weak weak
Coefficient, k

2.5
0.0015
Index,n

0.0010
2.0
0.0005

0.0000 1.5
0 4 8 12 16 0 4 8 12 16
Mixing time (min) Mixing time (min)

Fig. 9. Graph of (a) failure strain, (b) failure stress, (c) k, and (d) n for gluten from doughs mixed using (a) strong and (b) weak flour at various mixing
times.

the weak flour gluten, of which is in agreement with Sliwin-
ski et al. (2004c). Strain hardening prevents premature frac-
tures of dough and gluten and allow large extensions before
rupture (Chin and Campbell, 2005; Sliwinski et al., 2004c).
4. Conclusions
Determining the extensibility of gluten using the tensile
test set-up was successful in terms of providing the extensibil-
ity measurements where gluten do not fracture at the clamp-
ing areas. The extensibility of gluten from both strong and
weak flour dough increased as dough mixing time increased
to a peak of 8 min before decreasing. At this stage the gluten
development is at its optimum and further mixing of dough
beyond this optimum time results in reduction in gluten
extensibility. The extensibility parameters of gluten from
strong flour gave higher values than weak flour in term of
the length at fracture, measured and actual force, strain
and also stress. These results are supported by the higher
strain hardening properties of the strong flour gluten, which
prevents early fracture of gluten samples. This work illus-
trated that the behaviour of gluten development during mix-
ing can be predicted by the rheological characterisation of
gluten. Thus, the results also demonstrated the capability

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Journal of Food Engineering (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.005
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8 D.N. Abang Zaidel et al. / Journal of Food Engineering xxx (2007) xxx–xxx

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Journal of Food Engineering (2007), doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.005