MOISTURE REDISTRIBUTION THROUGHOUT THE BREAD LOAF DURING STALING AND ITS EFFECT ON MECHANICAL-PROPERTIES

The change of the moisture profile within a bread loaf and bread textu re during storage up to 300 hr at 25-degrees-C were investigated. Thre e different types of bread were considered: 1) bread from straight dou gh using conventional baker's yeast fermentation; 2) one-stage sour-do ugh bread from starter culture of Lactobacillus brevis; and 3) bread f rom straight dough acidified with lactic acid. An attempt to correlate bread-staling kinetics to water migration was made by considering the mass transport phenomena involved in the process. To evaluate bread s taling, the stress-strain behavior of bread during aging was investiga ted. By considering the moisture profile within the bread loaf, a corr elation between local moisture content and texture of stale bread was found. The experimental results proved that, to prevent staling, it is more important to slow down the dehydration phenomena rather than it is to increase the initial moisture content in the bread.