Monitoring the sprouting process of wheat by non-conventional approaches

Controlled wheat sprouting is a useful process to achieve the perfect balance between nutritional advantages and technological performance. This study aims at developing a methodology for evaluating wheat sprouting by using a portable NIR device directly on kernels. Wheat kernels were germinated up to 72 h with wet kernels being collected after 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 h and analysed directly or after drying by a MicroNIR in the spectral range of 950–1650 nm. Wholegrain and refined flours from sprouted kernels were investigated for chemical composition, enzymatic activities, starch pasting properties, and gluten aggregation kinetics. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) on the whole dataset derived from chemical composition and technological analyses revealed that the main changes occurred within the first 48 h. PCAs on spectral data, both from wet and dried kernels, assessed the effect of sprouting time, both on starch and protein fractions, as observed by conventional analyses on flour. Thus, a NIR portable device can be implemented directly on wet kernels to determine the stage of sprouting, skipping both the drying and refinement steps. Implementing this approach could help the food industry in standardizing and monitoring the sprouting process, delivering novel cereal-based products with guaranteed and consistent characteristics.