Wheat grain cooking process as investigated by modulated temperature differential scanning calorimetry

The thermal properties of soft and hard wheat grains, cooked in a steam pressure cooker, as a function of cooking temperature and time were investigated by modulated temperature differential scanning calorimetry (MTDSC). Four cooking temperatures (110, 120, 130 and 140 °C) and six cooking times (20, 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 min) for each temperature were studied. It was found that typical non-reversible heat flow thermograms of cooked and uncooked wheat grains consisted of two endothermic baseline shifts localised around 40–50 °C and then 60–70 °C. The second peaks of non-reversible heat flow thermograms (60–70 °C) were associated with starch gelatinisation. The degree of gelatinisation was quantified based on these peaks. In this study, starch was completely gelatinised within 60–80 min for cooking temperatures at 110–120 °C and within 20 min for cooking temperatures at 130–140 °C. MTDSC detected reversible endothermic baseline shifts in most samples, localised broadly around 48–67 °C with changes in heat capacity ranging from 0.02 to 0.06 J/g per °C. These reversible endothermic baseline shifts are related to the glass transition, which occurs during starch gelatinisation. Data on the specific heat capacity of the cooked wheat samples are provided.