Milling & Baking News - February 26, 2019 - 29

Food Ingredient Solutions

New treks for triticale
Research seeks to improve the bread-baking qualities of the high-yielding grain

ways to stay relevant and stay innovative," Mr. Fehsenfeld said.
The Uhlmann Co. worked with
restaurants in Kansas City to incorporate four specific heirloom grains into
their products:
* Rouge de Bordeaux, at 14% to
16% protein, is high in gluten and
works well in artisan bread;
* White Sonora, a soft white wheat,
is for cake and bakery flour;
* Bluebeard Durum, which is more
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ore than 50 years ago the promise of triticale drew the attention of the original "Star Trek" futuristic TV show. The episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" first aired on Dec. 29, 1967,
and mentioned "quadrotriticale," a grain that traced its ancestry to
the 20th century.
Triticale, a high-yielding grain, in the 1960s was heralded as a possible solution to feeding the world's growing population. The late
Norman Borlaug, Ph.D., winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970,
worked with triticale. Such promise eventually faded, particularly because of issues with triticale's bread-baking qualities. Now it's often
used as a forage crop or feed for animals.
Research in California seeks to bring awareness back to the grain, to
boldly take triticale where no triticale has gone before in bread baking.
"It's kind of the last hurdle to making triticale more widely grown,"
said Joshua Hegarty, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow in the Department
of Plant Science at the University of California - Davis.
He is leading a two-year program that has received funding
through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and will run through
March 2020. The program will seek to identify varieties of triticale
that work well in flour for bread.
"We are also actively using the knowledge gained in understanding the genetic basis of wheat quality to target certain genes to bring
into triticale from wheat to further improve bread-making quality,"
Dr. Hegarty said.
Triticale draws its name from the combination of triticum, the genus name for wheat, and secale, the genus name for rye. A hybrid
of wheat and rye, triticale (Triticosecale rimpaui) was developed as
a grain with the advantages of wheat for product development and
with the ability of rye to thrive in adverse conditions, according to the
Whole Grains Council, Boston.
Dr. Hegarty is tackling several triticale issues. He said the rye lineage
in it brings in some sticky dough characteristics, and triticale does not
have the mixing tolerance of wheat used in bread. Artisan bakers have
shown interest in triticale, and so have baking companies that add
small amounts of triticale to 7-grain or 12-grain bread, he said.
"In addition, some have expressed interest in 100% triticale bread
with an interest in the slight rye-type flavor," he said.
Triticale tends to have less gluten and weaker gluten than wheat
has, said George Fohner, Ph.D., a board member of the California
Grain Foundation.
"We know people can make very good triticale bread," Dr.
Fohner said. "That's not a question, but that's in the artisan world
where you can adjust for the fact that it has weaker gluten than a

high-gluten hard wheat. We know that it can make very good cookies
and tortillas."
The Annex by Ardent Mills, Denver, includes triticale in its portfolio.
"Triticale is a hybrid of wheat and rye that is a little more than
a century old," said Don Trouba, senior director, Go-to-Market for
The Annex by Ardent Mills. "With a subtle rye flavor and a balanced
sweetness, triticale is well-suited for use in a variety of baked items
and ideal for sweet and savory pastry applications. Our traditional
and organic triticale flours are whole grain flours that can be used
to replace a portion of wheat flour in recipes, adding a unique grain
story and appeal to leavened bread."
Triticale can outperform wheat in one area. The average triticale
grain yield was 12.6% higher than the average yield of wheat varieties in California statewide small grains variety trials from 2009-15, Dr.
Hegarty said.
"This yield advantage for triticale varied by year and region with
some region and year combinations showing as much as a 40% yield
advantage compared to wheat," he said. "Making these yield advantages even more impressive is the very low investment in triticale
compared to wheat."
Triticale grows better in arid conditions than other grains, thus increasing food supply. Triticale is grown for food in Ethiopia, Dr. Fohner said.
Dr. Hegarty is taking a logical approach to his work.
"At the end of the day, I'm really excited about the work, but the
history of triticale is overpromising and underdelivering," he said. "So
I'm always rather hesitant to make wide claims about where we're
going to be and how well it's going to work." MBN

than 14% protein, works well in pasta; and
* Red Fife, a hard red wheat variety that is nearly 13% protein, may
be used in high-protein all-purpose
flour.
Heirloom grains work best in
stone-milled whole grain form, Mr.
Fehsenfeld said. The diversity of their
flavor profiles is in the whole grain
and not just the endosperm.
The Uhlmann Co.'s heirloom grains

project was "on pause" early in 2019,
he said.
"It's very interesting, and it's niche,
and everyone loves the idea," Mr.
Fehsenfeld said. "When it comes down
to cost, where we're at with it, it's too
costly on the niche end of the market
to make it worthwhile. It could be a lot
of effort with not so much return at this
point. There's plenty of demand. It's just
trying to figure out the economics." MBN
- Jeff Gelski

Milling & Baking News

February 26, 2019 / 29

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Milling & Baking News - February 26, 2019

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