Investigation of the relationships between the alveograph parameters

Abstract

Alveograph analysis is an established method for flour characterisation, and several alveograph parameters have been introduced over the years. Typically, ten parameters are found for every analysis from the air pressure curve in the modern versions of the alveograph, but the relationships between the parameters and their potential redundancy are not well described in the literature. In this work, an overview of the parameters is provided, including how they are found and what they may represent, and the integral relationship between the parameters was investigated using Pearson correlation analysis of the parameters from 532 pressure curves. The parameters G (swelling index), Dmax (maximum of first derivative), SH (strain hardening index) and K (strength coefficient) exhibited very strong correlations with other alveograph parameters (r > 0.97), and these parameters do therefore not provide additional information. The parameters P (maximum overpressure), L (abscissa at rupture), W (deformation energy), P/L (configuration ratio), Ie (elasticity index) and Dmin (minimum of first derivative) on the other hand, represent a relatively basic set of parameters that uniquely characterises various parts of the pressure curves and thus the dough rheology/physics during dough inflation. Nevertheless, even between this basic set of parameters relatively strong correlations were found, signifying that they are interrelated, as they all are affected by changes in the dough constituents.