Current practices in testing flours call for measuring dough strength, not elasticity. Sheeting is a common
method for processing developed doughs, the elasticity of which governs dough’s sheetability as dough
springs back exiting rollers. To characterise dough sheetability, a study was conducted testing 18 different
doughs made from six different flours. Each dough was sheeted using an instrumented sheeter and
data for exit sheet thickness and roll forces were captured under a range of sheeting conditions. The true
rheological properties of doughs were measured and used to calibrate the ABBM constitutive model for
dough (1). Numerical simulations of sheeting operations were conducted; the R2 coefficients between
measured and predicted sheet thicknesses and roll forces (vertical and horizontal) were nearly all >0.9.
Relaxation times were derived from dough model parameters and revealed that flour quality for dough
elasticity should be assessed by examining moisture effects on dough relaxation time.