Cereal Chem 69:366-371   |  VIEW ARTICLE

Effect of Nonchaotropic Salts on Flour Bread-Making Properties.

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

Mixograph characteristics of wheat flour doughs were found to be affected by the addition of neutral salts. Changes in mixograph properties such as time to peak, peak height, or curve width were dependent on the specific ions present and their concentration. In bake tests, certain salts from both the precipitating and the solubilizing portions of the lyotropic series increased loaf volume relative to bread without salt. This was not true for all salts possibly because of a negative action on gas production of yeast. The extent of the improvement and the optimum usage level varied for each salt. Nonchaotropic salts increased the dough strength of flours of varying quality. The order of increasing flour strength followed the order of the original strength of the flours at the same level of salt. Na2SO4 had a more pronounced effect than did NaCl. Compared with NaCl, Na2SO4 greatly improved the rheological properties and the gas-retaining ability, as well as the loaf volume and crumb grain, of the poor-quality flour (presumably by increasing hydrophobic interactions between gluten proteins). However, the same level of Na2SO4 made the good-quality flour dough too elastic for breadmaking. The effect of nonchaotropic salt supported the hypotheses that the surface of the gluten proteins from the poor-quality flour was less hydrophobic than that from the good- quality flour, and that the hydrophobic interactions between proteins are important to bread quality. However, this study also demonstrated that the improvement in baking quality of poor-quality flour by salt was limited, which indicates that other factors besides hydrophobic interaction affect the baking properties of flours.