Falling Number is a professional instrument to detect sprout Damage through testing the alpha-amylase enzyme activity in grains and Flour because alpha-amylase activity is crucial index for final product Quality of bread, pasta, noodles and malt. It is an important quality Testing instrument for grain storage and flour production.

Features

- Easy operation

- Rapid analysis

- High accuracy

- High degree of automation

- Compact structure design

- International standard method to detect sprout damage

- with micro control CPU and printer to record each time result

- Matched automatic shaker is optional to minimize error and manpower.

Technical Data

	600W
Spec. of Viscosity Tube	Internal Diameter 210.02 mm External Diameter 23.80.25 mm Internal Wall Height 2200.3 mm
Power Supply	AC220V, 50Hz
Weight	22.5 kg
Overall Dimension	180 mm440 mm 515 mm

Working Principle:

the seeds of grain crops are mainly constituted by carbohydrates and starch, which is a key energy source for human, takes up the largest proportion. the eating quality and baking quality of products is Relevant to the activity of starch. If the fermented food, such as bread and Steamed bread, use the flours made of sprouting wheat, the core part would be clammy, the volume falls down and the taste would not be good. It is because that during the sprouting, the activity of-Amylase inside the wheat seeds increases sharply. If the flour has Been stored for years, the volume of the bread would become small and the core Part hard due to insufficient the activity of-Amylase.

the -Amylase, A kind of amylolytic enzyme, also named as liquefying enzyme, could hydrolyze the starch into dextrin and sugar to make the viscosity drop down. the activity Depends on ph, temperature, seeds damage, pasting and some other factors. with Proper temperature and ph condition, the activity of-Amylase would be high, which could lead to easier hydrolyzing function for the pasted starch and damaged starch grains while hard for those unpasted starch and complete starch grains. When it gets to the inactivation temperature for the enzyme, 

 

 

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the-Amylase would Become inactive. the inactivation temperatures for enzymes with different Sources (from grain, epiphyte, bacteria and etc) are different.

with water added in the wheat flour and vibrated, the temperature of the suspending liquid rises in boiling water and the volume of starch grains Swell after absorbing water. At the same time, the activity of-Amylase increases and would start to hydrolyze the starch in damaged Starch grains. When the suspending liquid reaches the pasting Temperature of wheat starch grains (55), the Grains would break and the molecules come out of the grains and make the suspending Liquid pasting liquid. Then the-Amylase Has a obviously stronger effect on the hydrolyzation of the pasted starch Molecules, hydrolyzing some of the starch molecules into dextrin and sugar and Making the viscosity drop down. the denser the-Amylase is in the wheat flour sample, the more the viscosity drops. Thus the change in the viscosity could reflect the activity of-Amylase.

both domestic and overseas department of grain trade, flour milling and baking are now taking the activity of grain's-Amylase as the quality index for grain products, especially for wheat and flour. They have been making efforts in adjusting the activity of-Amylase with diversified means.

Falling Number Determination test the activity of-Amylase in grains according to Hagberg-Perten method FN.

the suspending liquid of grain flours such as the wheat flours could Be pasting fast in boiling water and due to different activity of the -amylase, the starch of the pasted grain could be liquefied to different degrees. with Different liquefied degrees, the blender goes down in the pasting at different Speed. Thus the difference in falling numbers show the responding difference in the activity of the -amylase, the lower the falling number the higher the Activity of the -amylase.

the falling number is demonstrated via the seconds the viscosity Blender needed to fall free down a certain length of height in the pasting liquid.