Bread-Making Process Optimization: Staling Kinetics, Relationship of Batter Rheology, Shelf Life, Quality and Sensory Characteristics of Barbari Bread

Quality improvement of baked products is becoming an awareness for a wide range of manufacturers and consumers. In the current study, optimization of final proofing time, FPT, (20–60 min), dough mixing time in low speed, MTLS, (63 rpm) and in high speed, MTHS, (180 rpm) for 2.05–8.05 min based on bread moisture content, water activity, specific volume, sensory quality factor, hardness, dough adhesiveness, cohesiveness, hardness, chewiness, stickiness, resilience features using response surface method was designed. Results indicated that a higher value of quality and sensory features as well as dough cohesiveness was achieved by FPT level. Increasing MTLS led to increase in dough adhesiveness, hardness, chewiness and bread hardness. Correlation results revealed that specific volume may be considered for bread hardness (r = −0.75) and dough stickiness (r = −0.81) prediction. The suitable mathematical model for staling kinetics was power model. The optimization results were 56.84-min FPT, 2.05-min MTLS and 7.69-min MTHS, and are useful for bread quality improvement. Practical Application This work presents a useful approach for shelf life, quality and sensory improvement of bread. Furthermore, the correlation results indicated that some bread simple features can be applied for prediction of bread shelf life and some batter attributes and can be used for study of dough and bread behavior.