May 20, 1918 



Hydration Capacity of Gluten 



403 



In Table VI are presented the percentages of moist gluten and dry 

 gluten in the five flours which we have studied. If now we use these 

 figures to calculate the percentage of water in the moist gluten, or, in 

 other words, the amount of water imbibed by the dry gluten in preparing 

 the gluten for the tests, we fmd the figures given in Table VII. 



Table VII. — Percentage of water in the moist gluten of various flours 



P. 

 C. 



w. 



Water 

 in wet 

 gluten. 



66.85 



67-37 

 68.15 

 66. 00 

 71-39 



Dry 

 gluten in 



wet 

 gluten. 



33-15 

 32-63 



31-85 

 34.00 

 28.61 



Calculated 



water 



content if 



glutens 



were 



hydrated 



equal to 



P. 



65.82 

 64. 24 

 68.56 

 57-69 



Difference 

 of actual 

 from hy- 

 pothetical 



water 

 content. 



+ 1-55 

 + 3-89 

 — 2. 56 



+ 13-70 



-Graph showing the imbibition curves for P gluten in acetic acid and in acetic acid plus certainsalts. 



Expressing these figures in the conventional form of grams of water 

 imbibed per gram of moist gluten and using the patent flour P as our 

 standard, we find that — 



C showed an excess of 0.015 gm. of water per gram of moist gluten over P. 

 Wi showed an excess of 0.039 S™- of water per gram of moist gluten over P. 

 W2 showed a deficiency of 0.026 gm. of water per gram of moist gluten over P. 

 W3 showed an excess of 0.137 gm. of water per gram of moist gluten over P. 



The figures for C, Wj, and W2 are certainly within experimental error 

 and as such can have no significance; we must therefore conclude that 



