Semola and semolina quality control using NIR spectroscopy

Good pasta products start with good ingredients—including flour. Semola and semolina are special types of flour made from durum wheat, known for giving the resulting pasta a firm texture, bright yellow color, and superior cooking character. The difference is that semola is coarse (milled once) and semolina is exceptionally fine (milled twice). To make high-quality pasta, it is important to check key properties of these flours, like protein, moisture, ash content, gluten, and water absorption. This Application Note shows how monitoring these parameters with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can help pasta manufacturers quickly detect the best semola and semolina to keep their products consistent, tasty, and of high quality.

This Application Note demonstrates the feasibility of using NIR spectroscopy to determine multiple key parameters in semolina and semola flours. As shown in Table 2, various traditional analytical methods are typically used for these measurements. However, NIR spectroscopy has proven to be a faster, simpler, and highly accurate alternative, offering excellent precision while streamlining the analysis process.