Once your bread exits the oven, it enters an extremely crucial stage: cooling. The goal is to move the bread as soon possible on to packaging. Yet do that too quickly or too slowly, and you're going to end up with a lower quality product, or product waste. The goal is to decrease the internal [...]
Keeping bread fresh and flavorful should be a top priority for any artisan or commercial baker. Aside from keeping customers happy, it’s also how you cut down on waste—of both bread and operational costs. So what’s the secret to keeping your bread soft and delicious? Understanding the factors that cause staling and hardness in [...]
Packaging What is Packaging? Packaging is a combination of technological processes to enclose and protect finished food products to preserve and transport them. The main purpose is to maintain the integrity and sensorial properties of the food by protecting it from microbiological spoilage and staling.1 Failure to recognize its importance can have [...]
Staling refers to the undesirable changes (other than microbial spoilage) that take place between the time bread is baked and consumed. Understanding the different aspects of staling and the factors that affect them can help bakers make better decisions about their formulas, ingredients, processes, and packaging. Aspects of Staling Crumb firming is caused by [...]
You have a product, and it’s pretty great. But just how great is it? Or better yet, what is its quality? Defining the quality of baked goods can be difficult unless you’re using tests and benchmarks to quantify it. How can you do this? Baking tests such as gassing power, gas retention, mixing tolerance/stability, and water [...]
Blast Freezing What is blast freezing? Blast freezing is a rapid or short time thermal preservation technology commonly used in bakery and other food applications to extend the product’s shelf life and maintain its safety, physicochemical stability and freshness. Blast freezers blow very cold air (typically at -30°C and -50°C and high [...]
Someday, your products will go stale. Recrystallization of the starch molecules, gluten cross-links and moisture re-distribution are the main causes. Thankfully, there are ways to at least keep this process at bay! How to slow staling with ingredients Enzymes: alpha amylase, pullulanase, lipase, lipoxygenase, protease and other non-starch polysaccharide-modifying enzymes help decrease staling. Surface Active Lipids: DATEM, SSL, [...]
Staling is a major problem in the baking industry. Staled bread and cakes have undesirable qualities, like a dry, crumbly interior and a loss of flavor. Many plant personnels insist that moisture loss during storage is the main factor contributing to crumbliness of the crumb. While moisture loss is the popular belief, staling is caused [...]
Polyglycerol esters act as an emulsifier, allowing water and flour to mix. Polyglycerol Esters Also Known as PGEs What are Polyglycerol Esters? Polyglycerol esters of fatty acids (PGEs) are used in food as an emulsifier. PGEs are a class of synthetic, nonionic surfactant frequently used in food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries [...]
Shelf Life Extension What is Shelf Life Extension? Shelf life extension is an effort to make food safe for long periods, still keeping its original quality. Baked products beyond their shelf life can become: Stale, firm and dry Less resilient Not as flavorful Unsafe due to microbial growth Advances in bakery processing [...]
