ASH Determination - A Useful Standard or a Flash in the Pan.doc

ASH DETERMINATION – A USEFUL STANDARD OR A FLASH IN THE PAN? A.D. Evers, Ascus Ltd. Talybont, Albert St, Markyate, Herts, England. M Kelfkens, TNO Nutrition and Food Research,PO Box 360,Utrechtseveg 48,3700 AJ Zeist, The Netherlands. G. McMaster, BRI Australia Ltd, PO Box 7 North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia. You will notice that, although I have the privilege of delivering this paper, two distinguished co-authors are also credited. The content of this talk reflects something of the contributions made by the institutes that we have served for many years, to the understanding of flour quality and measurement of its purity. We have included findings from CCFRA, in the UK (for whom I worked until 1997) TNO in the Netherlands, where Marcel Kelfkens is a Scientific Co-worker and BRI Australia Ltd where Graham McMaster is the Chief Executive Officer. As an introduction to these contributions we provide a reminder of the importance of white flour in the market, objectives of milling white flour, and some of the methods of assessing the degree of success achieved. One universal objective of flour milling is the reduction of particle size, or more precisely to grind grains to produce a flour or a meal. Where this is the only objective the resulting product is a wholemeal in which, by definition, the botanical constituents are present in the same proportions as in the wheat from which it is produced. While wholemeals can be baked to produce excellent products they are, in many countries, less popular than products made from flours that are more refined. The miller thus has a further objective: the separation of nutrients originating in the starchy endosperm from those originating in other parts of the grain, i.e. the embryo and the seedcoats and fruitcoats. In the United Kingdom wholemeal and brown flours account for only about 14% of the bread flour market (Anon 1999). The majority of remaining flours are described as ‘white.’ While defining wholemeal is simple, defining bro