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Title: COMPARISON OF NEAR-INFRARED REFLECTANCE SPECTROSCOPY AND TEXTURE ANALYSIS FOR PREDITING WHEAT BREAD STALING

Author
item XIE, FENG - KSU, MANHATTAN, KS 66502
item Dowell, Floyd
item SUN, SUSAN - KSU, MANHATTAN, KS 66502

Submitted to: Cereal Chemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/29/2002
Publication Date: 1/1/2003
Citation: Xie, F., Dowell, F.E., Xiuzhi, S.S. 2003. Comparison of near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy and texture analysis for prediting wheat bread staling. Cereal Chemistry. 80(1):25-29

Interpretive Summary: Bread staling is one of the most common problems in bread storage. It affects bread texture properties such as firmness. Bread gets firmer as the storage time increases. Bread firmness, as measured in compression mode by a texture analyzer (TA), has been commonly used to predict bread staling. However, this method has many disadvantages. A trend always exists in a loaf with the firmer slice in the center. Its accuracy decreases when measuring the samples made from different batches. This study investigated the potential of visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) to detect bread staling by comparing NIRS results with those obtained by the TA. Bread actual storage time is used to indicate bread staling level. NIRS measurements correlated better with the actual storage time than the TA measurements. The results show that NIRS could predict bread staling more accurately and precisely than TA. NIRS has been widely used to measure eprotein and moisture content of wheat flour in milling industry. This stud demonstrates that NIRS could also be a new and better approach to access bread staling, which is simple, fast, non-destructive, accurate, and precise.

Technical Abstract: Bread staling affects bread texture properties and is one of the most common problems in bread storage. Bread firmness, as measured in compression mode by a texture analyzer (TA), has been commonly used to predict bread staling. This study investigated the potential of visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) to detect bread staling by comparing NIRS results with those obtained by the TA. Twenty-five loave of commercial wheat white pan bread from one batch were studied over 5 days. NIRS and TA measurements were made on the same slice at approximately the same time. The experiment was repeated 5 times using the same kind of commercial samples from 5 different batches. NIRS measurements of slices, loaf averages, and daily averages were compared with TA measurements. NIRS measurements correlated better with the actual storage time and had smaller standard deviations than the TA measurements. The batch differences had less effect on NIRS measurements than on the TA measurements. The results indicate that NIRS could predict bread staling more accurately than TA. NIRS is based on both physical and chemical changes during bread staling, unlike the TA method that only measures bread firmness, which is only one aspect of the staling phenomenon.