Effects of frozen storage on texture, microstructure, water mobility and baking quality of brown wheat flour/β-glucan concentrate Arabic bread dough

Abstract

Frozen dough attracts attention from the consumers of the developing countries as an alternative to regular bread making process. Incorporation of β-glucan into wheat flour-based frozen dough would improve the health benefits to the consumers. An attempt was made in this work to extend the frozen dough concept by formulating an Arabic bread dough, which consists of β-glucan concentrate, brown wheat flour, xanthan gum, salt, yeast, sugar, and trehalose. The influence of freezing and frozen storage at − 20 °C for 9 weeks on Arabic bread dough rheology, fermentation efficiency, and final bread quality was studied in this work. The freezing process significantly hardened the dough. Extensigraph, extensional rheology, TPA, and microstructural analysis of the frozen dough indicated that the textural/structural attributes, and bread making quality remained unchanged during first 6 weeks of storage (p > 0.05), however, the dough quality deteriorates on further storage (p < 0.05). The water mobility and the ice melting temperature of the stored doughs varied as evidenced by nuclear magnetic resonance and differential scanning calorimetry measurements, respectively. The incorporation of xanthan gum and trehalose could possibly assist to retain the moisture contents in the dough, and retain the activity of yeast in the frozen dough, respectively.