Cereal Chem 65:302-307   |  VIEW ARTICLE

An Optimum Compression Depth for Measuring Bread Crumb Firmness.

A. E. Baker, C. E. Walker, and K. Kemp. Copyright 1988 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Bread firmness evaluation with the Instron universal testing machine was performed on two distinctly different bread formulations and over a period of time in order to evaluate the sensitivity of various compression depths. The standard AACC method 74-09 was modified so that the firmness was measured at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30% of the 25-mm thick sample. A 3 x 2 x 2 factorial design was used, and the data were analyzed for variance and significant differences. As the compression increased, so did the variability. This can be interpreted to mean increased sensitivity to changes in crumb firmness. Further analysis revealed that the 25% compression depth was most effective in detecting significant differences in firmness due to staling and bread formulation. The characteristics of the resulting compression curve are also discussed.