Physico-chemical changes in breads from bake off technologies during storage

Quality of several bread specialties from frozen partially baked breads was assessed to define main quality features. Loss of crust freshness shortly after baking was also determined. Quality parameters that characterize bread crust and crumb were determined by instrumental methods in nine different (regarding to formulation and bake off duration) bread types obtained from frozen partially baked breads. Principal component analysis (PCA) allowed discriminating among bread specialties. Quality parameters that enable the differentiation of wheat bread types were crust mechanical properties together with specific volume, crumb hardness and structure. Crust flaking barely represented a problem in the studied types of bread. Crust mechanical properties were rapidly lost during the first 4 h after baking and the rate of the process was greatly dependent on the bread type. The force to promote crust fracture underwent increase up to 6 h after baking and those changes occurred in the Aw range of 0.50–0.74 or moisture content 9–15 g/100 g.