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- Hi everyone, welcome
to the Ask Dr. Lin show
where I answer questions that
hit BAKERpedia.com daily.
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So hey there, thank you
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I'm Dr. Lin from BAKERpedia,
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All right, I'm gonna focus today's show
on bread and fermentation.
Don't forget, fermentation
does three things.
One, it gives yeast enough
time to produce carbon dioxide,
which also produces acids and enzymes,
and three, it provides
residence time for hydration.
Therefore during fermentation,
acid production is one
of these three things.
The acids commonly found
are acidic and lactic acids.
In yeast bread, that's about
an equal amount of each.
In sourdough bread,
usually lactic acids are more
prevalent than acidic acids.
The acids will strengthen the dough
by unraveling gluten proteins
right down to around pH 5.0.
When the proteins unravel,
this opens them up for more cross-linking,
and cross-linking will
strengthen the dough.
However, if you keep fermenting the dough,
more acids will be produced
and this will bring a
pH down to below 4.0.
Below this pH, the protein
starts to denature.
So what does denature mean?
Well, it means that the
protein starts breaking apart
in the net which starts disintegrating.
Therefore, very long
fermentation weakens the dough.
How do you see this?
Well, when the dough gets
really slack and stringy,
especially with doughs that
have more than eight hours
of fermentation at room
temperature, it's done.
It's denaturing.
Let's take a two-prong approach
of using process and ingredients.
Let's focus on the process first.
What affects softness?
Well, mixing and baking.
Proper hydration, and
mixing, and dough development
will create a strong network
that holds in the air,
provide a higher volume, and
resulting in a softer product.
Also prevent excessive moisture pickup
by using thermal profiling
for a white bread product.
Target arrival of no less than 80%,
which means not more than
20% of your baking time
should be above 200 degrees Fahrenheit
or 293 degree Celsius.
If you want a moister and softer product,
target 85% arrival.
For an increase in chewiness,
I believe you are talking about the crust.
There is one way to improve the chew
and that's through steam.
When you use steam, it
gelatinizes or cooks
the starch on the surface of the bread.
What happens then, the starch
granule slowly opens up,
forming bonds with the
surrounding molecules of gluten.
It then gets cooked and dried
out in the crusting process
and this is what results in a chewy crust.
Back to our two-pronged approach.
I proposed equipment and
ingredient solutions.
Now, let's focus on the ingredients.
The best ingredient solutions to soften
and to produce moister products
is to add shortening or enzymes.
Why?
Well, because oil or fats
disrupts the network,
shortening the texture and
creating a softer bite to it.
Enzymes also do soften the crumb, as well,
especially over shelf life.
So, check with your ingredients supplier
and see which enzyme would be the best
for your application of softness.
As far as a chew is concerned,
this can be enhanced by using
high quality bread flour
or vital wheat gluten.
The interaction between gluten and starch,
as mentioned previously, is
what causes a better chew.
Therefore, better quality
gluten, better chew.
So remember, ingredient
solution for softness
is affected by shortening and enzymes.
And for chewiness are high protein flour
and vital wheat gluten.
Usually, fibers help improve
the texture, resiliency,
and the nutritional content
of the baked product.
Most fibers, especially soluble fiber
reacts and binds to water in
every food system out there.
In this aspect,
it reduces the water
activity within the system.
So, theoretically yes, it
should reduce the water activity
and reduce mold.
Say, if you add fiber to
your white pan bread formula
without adding more water,
yes, you should get a longer
shelf life without mold
because you have effectively
reduced the water activity.
However, at the practical level,
when you add fibers that react to water,
you affect the dough rheology.
Your doughs will be dry and tight.
Your operators would
want to add more water
to improve the flow.
So they do add more water at the mixer
and this increases the water
activity, so it pretty much
nulls out the water
activity reduction effect
that the fiber has on
the original formulation.
So in such cases, I would
suggest to ask a baker
to go back to the drawing
board and reformulate
a fiber product that
increases the shelf life
by adding more shortening
or oil, not water.
Lastly, don't forget the
other methods of anti-molding
are sanitation and the
use of cultured wheat.
Cultured wheat is a great
product to use for anti-molding,
mainly because it is friendly
to your ingredient label.
So, to summarize it, to prevent molding,
try to reduce water
activity, improve sanitation,
and use cultured wheat.
Well, that's all I have for today.
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