Cereal Chem 69:1-6   |  VIEW ARTICLE

Factors Controlling Gas Retention in Nonheated Doughs.

H. He and R. C. Hoseney. Copyright 1992 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

When fully fermented and molded doughs made from six flours of differing baking quality were allowed to proof for an extended time, each dough expanded to its maximum. The maximum dough proof heigh was highly correlated (r = 0.990) to loaf volume of bread produced by the same flours. Rheological study showed that the poor-quality flour dough was stiffer and less deformable under a constant stress than the good-quality flour dough. The gluten from poor-quality flour appeared to be easier to hydrate, more viscous, and less elastic than the good-quality gluten. However, doughs from the poor-quality flour were stiffer with less flow than dough from the good-quality flour. Conclusions drawn from observations of the microscopic structure of optimally mixed dough indicated that the poor-quality gluten interacted strongly with starch granules. That interaction may decrease the flow properties of dough. Observations of the gas cells in fermenting dough from good-quality flour dough showed that they grew uniformly with time. However, in poor-quality dough, only a small number of cells enlarged, and most of the small cells expanded only slightly. The smaller flow properties of the poor-quality dough apparently did not allow the gas cells to expand at a rate fast enough to equalize the pressure. Thus, as the pressure in the cells increased, less CO2 diffused into the cells and more gas diffused to the atmosphere, which resulted in a smaller loaf.