A new micro-baking method for determination of crumb firmness properties in fresh bread and bread made from frozen dough = Entwicklung eines Mikrobackversuches zur Evaluierung der Krumeneigenschaften von frischen Broten und Broten aus vorgegarten Tiefkühlteiglingen

In general, micro-baking tests are used to determine the baking quality when only low amounts of test flour are available, for example, in grain breeding. Several micro-methods are described in literature, but none of them allows the determination of bread crumb texture parameters. Therefore, a micro-baking procedure that offers this option was developed, and it was also evaluated for bread made from pre-fermented frozen doughs. In this procedure, Rapid Visco Analyser (RVA) sample cans were used as baking pans. To examine the capability of this procedure, three wheat flours with different starch properties were chosen. The obtained breads were analyzed with respect to specific loaf volume, crust color and bread crumb firmness. Additionally, a storage test (0-5 days) was performed to determine the crumb firming parameters by kinetics of the Avrami equation. The obtained specific bread volumes revealed significant differences between the flours and the coefficients of variation ranged between 4.2 and 5.5%. Crumb firmness measurement was able to identify significant differences within the samples. The obtained data on firming kinetics reflected the expected properties of samples with different starch properties. Overall, this work demonstrated the feasibility of crumb property measurement on breads on a micro-scale.