Wheat Bread Research Paper

Introduction

Wheat grain is a staple food being consumed worldwide, playing an important role in human nutrition. The main component in wheat flour is starch, constituting an average of 70% of its weight. The molecular structure of starch is made up of 2 polymers, amylose and amylopectin (Shewry, 2009), and it is these 2 molecules that makes up the backbone and branching points of the starch granule. In the process of bread making, these starch granules swell and gelatinized to due to the increase uptake of water (Yasunaga, Bushuk and Irvine, 1968).

The other main component found in wheat grain is gluten, which can be used in a variety of applications ranging from food such as bread to biomedical purposes (Lagrain et al., 2010; Reddy

α-Amylases are typically found in trace amounts in wheat flour (Sahlström and Bråthen, 1997; Goesaert et al., 2009), and in the bread industry, exogenous addition of α-amylases (derived from A. niger) increases the yield of fermentable, reducing sugars and Maillard reaction products, which affects the flavour and crust colour of the loaf (Danehy, 1986; Namiki, 1988).

Yeast (S. cerevisiae) is one of the main ingredients in bread, with the major role of fermenting simple sugars, such as glucose and maltose produced from starch, thus allowing yeast to produce more carbon dioxide gas and ethanol. It is the result of the fermentation that produces a leavened loaf of bread (Beck, Jekle and Becker, 2011).

This experiment aims to study the effects of exogenous addition of thermostable α-amylase on dough and bread

Dough elasticity & extensibility

Between the control and amylase dough, there were significant differences in elasticity and extensibility, where the control dough demonstrated higher resistance to stretching (higher tenacity), returning to original shape more readily (higher elasticity) and breaks apart when elongated (low extensibility) as compared to the loaf with amylase which demonstrated the opposite where it was able to stretch easily (lower tenacity), does not return to original shape (low elasticity) and elongates without breaking (high extensibility).

Loaf Weight and Volume

A comparison between the two loaves also showed no discernible distinctions between its weight before and after proofing (Table 1), with a 1.12% increase in control and 0.032% decrease in loaf with amylase present.

However, the final loaf volume presented a significant difference between the two (Figure 1). It was found that the loaf with amylase was bigger, 13% in height, 10% in width and 24% in frontal area, than the control