BREAD ROPE SPOILAGE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Rope spoilage of bread is produced by bacteria belonging to Bacillus genus. Insufficient cleaning of the wheat before the milling operation contributes to obtaining flour with a high degree of contamination with these bacteria which produce thermoresistant endospores and further maintain their viability in the baking process. After baking, thermoresistant endospores can pass into the vegetative form and can multiply, causing spoilage of bread, which is manifested by the occurrence of an unpleasant odour, and the core of the bread becomes sticky. In this study, samples of bread from second-grade wheat flour were obtained. The kinetics of bacterial growth in the core of the thermostated bread at 37 °C for 84 hours was determined. It was found that immediately after baking the degree of contamination of the bread core was 1.28·104 cfu/g, and after 40 hours of thermostating the degree of contamination of the bread core increased by 2.85 logarithmic cycles, at this bread sample were observed the first signs of the rope spoilage (unpleasant odour). Thus, bread obtained from highly contaminated flour can contain a very large number of bacteria belonging to Bacillus genus, having no signs of rope spoilage, and thus the consumption of this bread may be dangerous to the consumer’s health.