Comparative quality of Montana bread wheats in milled white flour and whole grain bread products 276 Comparative quality of Montana bread wheats in milled white flour and whole grain bread products. Department of Plant Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717. Historically, high-quality Montana hard wheats have been milled to white flour and used for baking bread.
Domestic users are increasingly interested in whole grain products.
Representative hard red and white winter and spring wheat cultivars grown at two Montana locations from 1996 to 1998 were subjected to end-use protocols defining quality in traditional milled white flour breads and whole wheat breads. Our objective was to assess genotypic variability and genotype evaluation protocol interaction to determine if high quality genotypes could be identified for use in whole grain products using traditional quality evaluation protocols. Significant variation was observed among wheat cultivars for physical dough characteristics and bread-baking characteristics in both white flour and whole wheat protocols. With exception of mixograph absorption, quality parameters determined using conventional white flour protocols were highly correlated with quality parameters determined using whole wheat meal. We conclude that no special quality selection criteria are necessary to identify cultivars with superior whole grain bread baking qualities.