Impact of wheat bran micronization on dough properties and bread quality: Part I – Bran functionality and dough properties.

• Wheat bran micronization increased aleurone cells disruption. • Wheat bran micronization increased phenolic acids liberation. • Wheat bran micronization increased water-extractable arabinoxylan content. • Wheat bran micronization increased antioxidant activities. • Wheat bran micronization decreased dough extensibility. This study aimed to investigate the effect of wheat bran micronization on its functionality including physicochemical and antioxidant properties, and dough properties. Coarse bran (D 50 = 362.3 ± 20.5 μm) was superfine ground to medium (D 50 = 60.4 ± 10.1 μm) and superfine (D 50 = 11.3 ± 2.6 μm) bran, accompanied with increasing specific surface area and breakdown of aleurone layers. Bran micronization increased its soluble dietary fibre content, ferulic acid liberation, and antioxidant properties including total polyphenol content, ABTS•+ and DPPH• scavenging activities, while decreased its water retention capacity and insoluble dietary fibre content. Moreover, bran micronization impacted dough rheological properties. The dough with superfine bran had higher water absorption and gelatinization temperature, peak viscosity, final viscosity and setback value, lower stability time, resistance to extension, and extensibility than the dough with coarse bran. This dough furthermore exhibited more solid-like properties characterized by decreased loss moduli and frequency dependence (n'). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]