Whole grains are nutritious and provide high dietary fiber content. Shredded products have been historically made with whole grain wheat. Generally, in the production of shredded wheat, ready-to-eat cereal biscuits, and shredded wheat wafers from whole grains, a plurality of shredded layers are laminated upon one other, and the laminate is cut, dockered, and baked to provide products having a distinctly visible shred pattern on their opposing major surfaces. The shreds provide visual attractiveness and a unique, crispy texture and connote a healthy, hearty, natural product. Also, the shreds may provide increased surface area and deliver a robust flavor.
Wheat is often shredded because it has a composition that lends itself to be easily cooked, cooled, and shredded. To prepare wheat for shredding, whole wheat berries are generally immersion cooked in water and then cooled and tempered, using prolonged tempering times. Wheat is generally easy to shred over long periods after the cooking and tempering, for example up to about 24 hours after tempering. Whole wheat is unique in that it contains gluten that helps to retain water and to provide cohesiveness and elasticity during machining even after prolonged periods after tempering. However, the same is not true for other grains because of their lack of gluten and their unique chemical composition and changes that happen to the grains after cooking and tempering.
Starch-based compositions, which have little or no gluten, when mixed with water, tend not to form a material that is cohesive at room temperature and may not be continuously machinable or sheetable. Machinability of material made from ingredients having little or no gluten may be improved by forming the material under elevated temperature conditions, such as by steaming the ingredients. However, in the production of shredded products from cooked, tempered, non-glutenous and low gluten whole grains such as corn, oats, rice, and barley, or their combinations shreddability into long continuous shreds tends to decrease as tempering times increase or as the time between tempering and shredding increases. For example, cooked corn has a tendency to become hard and rubbery during the cooling and tempering process due, it is believed, to starch retrogradation. Also, storing of tempered low or no gluten grains in surge bins to accommodate mass production processes tends to increase starch retrogradation and hardness. The cooked, tempered grains which become hardened or rubbery, tend to fracture during shredding or do not conform to shredding roll grooves for producing continuous, well-defined shredded net-like sheets.
In conventional processes for producing shredded cereals, the grain is cooked and then permitted to temper to increase shred strength. Tempering of the cooked grains prior to shredding has generally been considered necessary for obtaining strong, continuous shreds. Cooked wheat or similar gluten containing grains are subjected to tempering times of over 12 hours before shredding. In the manufacture of a whole wheat food product such as shredded wheat, whole wheat is cooked sufficiently to gelatinize the starch. Gelatinization is a function of water penetration into the whole berry, temperature, and time, for a given type of grain. The gelatinization of wheat starch involves a destruction of bonds in the crystalline regions of starch granules. Retrogradation is the return of the starch molecules to a crystalline structure, which is different from the original crystalline structures, upon cooling. Tempering permits the gelatinized wheat starch to slowly cool and permits water migration through the wheat particles to achieve a uniform moisture distribution within the particles. Retrogradation occurs during tempering. If shredding is attempted shortly after cooking, the insufficient degree of retrogradation or tempering results in at best, short non-continuous strands and/or strands which are strong, curly, or suffer from other physical or textural disadvantage. In some cases, the time required for the tempering of cooked whole wheat is substantially reduced by cooling the wheat at a temperature of from 60° F. to about 70° F.
It is believed that for wheat, the tempering permits distribution of water and facilitates development of the gluten into a network which provides cohesiveness for shredding. It is also believed that the retrogradation of wheat starch during tempering or after tempering is slow so as not to impede shredding or it forms a crystalline structure which permits shredding in the presence of gluten. Tempering of non-glutenous and low gluten grains, such as corn, oats, rice, and barley also helps to distribute water throughout the starch granules. It is believed that release of some soluble starch during cooking and distribution of the starch and water during tempering helps to provide cohesiveness. However, the amount released may be insufficient for continuous shreddability or the starch retrogradation may be too rapid and may provide a crystalline structure which impedes shreddability into long continuous shreds.
Further, there has been increasing interest in providing foods with combinations of ingredients, flavors and textures. For example, traditional foods such as crackers oftentimes have a generally uniform appearance. In view of this, consumers often look for variations in product appearance when seeking to try new products. However, when incorporating additional components to modify the texture and/or appearance of a product, such as a cracker, traditional processing steps can result in detrimental effects on the strength and/or flavor of the resulting product. For example, shredded wheat crackers are oftentimes cooked in a pressure cooking stage. If additional components are added at the start of the pressure cooking stage, the additional components may denature or otherwise break down or become excessively overcooked or sticky.
Additionally, consumers have been looking for snacks that provide more natural food ingredients while still providing the taste and appearance of a snack food. Such snack foods may provide, for example, the sweet and/or savory flavors of traditional snacks or crackers while providing more natural ingredients that some consumers may interpret as being more “wholesome” when compared with other snacks.