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Malted Sorghum as a Functional Ingredient in Composite Bread

¹Department of Rural Engineering, Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry Engineering, Eduardo Mondlane University, PO Box 257, Maputo, Mozambique. ²Cereal Quality Laboratory, Soil and Crop Science Department, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843-2474. ³Department of Food Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa. ⁴Corresponding author. Phone: +27 12 420 4296; Fax: +27 12 420 2839; E-mail: jrnt✠@scientia.up.ac.za.

To alleviate the adverse effects (grittiness and high crumb firmness) caused by the inclusion of sorghum flour in composite breads, sorghum grain was malted with the aim of decreasing the gelatinization temperature and increasing the water-holding capacity of sorghum flour. Four different heat treatments were investigated: drying the malt at high temperatures (50–150°C), stewing, steaming, and boiling before drying the malt at 80°C. Malting decreased the pasting temperature of sorghum to values approaching those of wheat flour, but the paste viscosity was very low. Increasing the malt drying temperature inactivated the amylases but gave malts of darker color and bitter taste. Stewing, steaming, and boiling the malt before drying almost completely inactivated the amylases and increased the enzyme-susceptible starch content and the paste viscosity of malt flours. Bread made with boiled malt flour (30%) had an improved crumb structure, crumb softness, water-holding capacity, and resistance to staling, as well as a fine malt flavor compared with the bread made with grain sorghum flour (30%). Consumers preferred the malted sorghum bread over the bread made with plain sorghum flour.