Cereal Chem 39:437 - 444.  |  VIEW ARTICLE

Flour as a Factor in Bread Firming.

J. G. Ponte, Jr., S. T. Titcomb, and R. H. Cotton. Copyright 1962 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

The average crumb firmness and firming rates of bread made with ten commercial winter wheat flours having relatively small differences in protein and other analytical values and test baking results were found to be significantly different. Of the two flours showing extreme loaf compression values after 70 hours of storage, one had about a 14-hour softness advantage over the other. Rate of bread firming was found to be significantly correlated with proof time; there was no significant correlation with the usual flour quality indices such as protein, ash, maltose figure, and amylograph values. The bread produced for this study exhibited a systematic variation in intraloaf firming: loaf centers were significantly firmer than their ends. Intraloaf firming variations were attributed to differences in specific volume within loaves. The correlation coefficient of these two factors for seven sections in the loaves was 0.93%**, significant at the 0.1% level.