Rheology of Gluten-Free Doughs from Blends of Chestnut and Rice Flours

Gluten-free flours blends using chestnut flour (CF) and rice flour (RF) were assayed in order to determine mixing and rheological properties of doughs at 30 °C as well as the thermal behaviour employing heating–cooling temperature steps. CF with different mean particle size (commercial, CCF: 169 μm and low particle size, CF1: 77 μm samples) was employed and blended with RF (46 μm) at several ratios (%) (CCF/RF: 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40, 50/50; CF1/RF: 25/75, 15/85, 5/95). Doughs from CCF, CF1 and RF flours were employed as reference systems. The rheological characterization of doughs conducted on the rheometer was performed by shear, oscillatory and creep-recovery assays. Rheological properties were significantly modified by flour ratio and by CF particle size. Creep-recovery curves showed that CCF/RF (70/30) and CF1/RF (25/75) improved the doughs elasticity by 41.1 % and 87.5 % compared with CCF and CF1, respectively. Cross, power and Burgers models were used to describe the flow curves, mechanical spectra and creep-recovery behaviour, respectively, of doughs. A mixing rule successfully reproduced the experimental data and fitting parameters of applied models as function of each flour fraction in the blends, except for oscillatory data.