Wheat and Flour Blending

How and Why?

Mark Fowler
Associate Director
International Grains Program
Kansas State University

Blending: Why?
• Three Reasons Why to Blend
– Consistency
– Product Differentiation
– Cost
• When to Blend
– Wheat or Flour?

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 Wheat and Flour
Blending

1. Consistency

– Homogeneous mix to the mill

– Repeatable flour characteristics

The goal of blending for uniformity is to even out

the highs and lows of some measurable variable!

Continuous Blending

• Each wheat/flour bin has a variable speed

discharger and flow rate adjustment.
• The dischargers empty into a continuous
blender or transfer system.
• Accuracy of blend depends on accuracy of
bin dischargers AND on absence of flour
bin chokes.

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Wheat and Flour
Blending

Differentiated Products
– Mixing similar classes at different
protein levels
– Mixing of dissimilar classes for
unique end product characteristics
The goal is to create a product that couldn’t otherwise
be made.

U.S. Wheat Classes

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 Wheat and Flour Blending Differentiated
Products
• Maintaining wheat from various classes
flexibility in the types and quality of flour
available in the market

Wheat and Flour

Blending
90 %
of
$200 /
Ton

Cost Control
– Blending MAX low cost wheat into a higher
10 %
of
valued mix
–
$100 /
Ton
Blending MIN high cost wheat into a low
cost mix
The goal is to deliver the least cost mix possible that
=
still meets the customers expectations.
$190 /
Ton

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 Blending: Least Cost delivers Best Value

The price of wheat is largely determined by

the commodity markets.
The choice we have is selecting the types
,
of wheat that we can blend together to
meet our customer requirements.

Blending: Least Cost delivers the Best Value

In most cases wheat cost accounts for 85%

or more of the cost to produce flour.
Other production costs, such as labor,
electricity and capital investment are
,

important, but we must purchase the wheat

right to stay competitive

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 Wheat Blending: How?
1. Shipping Elevator prior to delivery
2. Mill Elevator prior to cleaning
3. Cleaned Wheat prior to tempering
4. Tempered Wheat prior to milling

Wheat Blending Requirements

1. Knowledge of your wheat inventory and
available supply
2. Knowledge of your mill and elevator
capabilities
3. Knowledge of your market
4. Knowledge of your customers

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 Flour Blending - Purposes

1. Product Consistency
 Homogenization of long runs of a
similar wheat mix when the
majority of the flour is used by one
customer.
 When wheat blending for
uniformity is not possible or
ineffective.

Flour Blending - Purposes

2. Product Customization
 Creating unique flours by
blending the standard flour
from different wheat
mixes.
 Creating unique flours by
selecting and binning
separately individual
streams from similar or
dissimilar wheat mixes.

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 Flour Blending requirements
• Knowledge of each flours functional
characteristics
• Knowledge of your mill and flour system
capabilities
• Knowledge of your market
• Knowledge of your customer

Same list as with wheat! Knowledge is more important

than equipment or money.

Flour Blending Strategies

• Utilizing the Mill Stream Analysis –
“Blending from the Mill”
• Continuous Blending Following Milling
• Batch Blending Following Milling
• Re-Blending Following Milling

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 Best – Least Used Tool in Blending…
The Stream Analysis
• When to use the mill ‘stream analysis’...
– For each different wheat normally
milled.
– For different milling locations.
– Updated for crop year changes.
• Why use the mill stream analysis?
– Some custom flours can only be produced by stream
selection.
– The stream analysis will reveal which streams to select and
the expected extraction rate. (Important for costing)
– It will also reveal the quality and quantity of the ‘leftover’
flour not selected.

Continuous Blending
• Each flour bin has a variable
speed discharger and flow rate
adjustment.
• The dischargers empty into a
continuous blender or transfer
system.
• Accuracy of blend depends on
accuracy of bin dischargers
AND on absence of flour bin
chokes.

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Batch Blending
• Large capacity blender on a high
capacity scale.
• Each constituent flour is weighed into
the blender. - Generally good accuracy –
• Very good technique for relatively small
quantities. (Specialty Packaged
Products)
• Relatively slow compared to continuous
blending

Re-blending the Blended Flour

• Some mills will re-blend flours from the
beginning of the run with flours from the
end of the run.
• This helps to homogenize the flour.
• Requires extra power and bin space.
• Most appropriate for long ‘runs’ of the
same blend.

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 Blending Flour
• Laboratory must know exact qualities
of the flour available for blending.
• Laboratory must supply the miller
with the blending ratios.
• It is usually a mistake to try to blend
more than two or three flours.

Blending to obtain a customized product requires an intimate

knowledge of the components of flour quality and the level of each
required by a given customer or product.

Addition of Minor Ingredients

• The laboratory must supply the miller with the
specifications for minor ingredients, based on baking
tests.
• Minor ingredient requirements can vary:
– From one crop year to the next
– If constituent flours are from different wheats
• Where do we add the minor ingredients?
– Immediately after milling (before blending)?
– During blending?
– Both?

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 Where to add minor ingredients
• We may need to add ingredients at the milling
stage.
– Some blends may have a different response
to additives than the responses of the
constituents.
– But adding additives at the milling stage
means we will need to make more ‘slightly’
different constituent flours and thus need
more flour silos to keep them separate.

Adding additives during blending

• This is normally desirable since it reduces the

silo requirements. (Mill untreated base flours)
• But, if flours are produced straight from the
mill, it is uneconomical to pass the flour
through the blending system only for addition
of minor ingredients.
• Thus many mills are equipped to add minor
ingredients at either processing stage.

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 What’s the Best Blending Philosophy?
Do both when possible!

1. Blending wheat for uniformity

2. Blending flour for product
customization

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