Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Food Measurement and Characterization https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-020-00725-5 ORIGINAL PAPER Efects of frozen storage on texture, microstructure, water mobility and baking quality of brown wheat four/β‑glucan concentrate Arabic bread dough Jasim Ahmed 1  · Linu Thomas 1  · A. Al‑Hazza 1 Received: 6 August 2020 / Accepted: 24 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Frozen dough attracts attention from the consumers of the developing countries as an alternative to regular bread making pro- cess. Incorporation of β-glucan into wheat four-based frozen dough would improve the health benefts to the consumers. An attempt was made in this work to extend the frozen dough concept by formulating an Arabic bread dough, which consists of β-glucan concentrate, brown wheat four, xanthan gum, salt, yeast, sugar, and trehalose. The infuence of freezing and frozen storage at − 20 °C for 9 weeks on Arabic bread dough rheology, fermentation efciency, and fnal bread quality was studied in this work. The freezing process signifcantly hardened the dough. Extensigraph, extensional rheology, TPA, and micro- structural analysis of the frozen dough indicated that the textural/structural attributes, and bread making quality remained unchanged during frst 6 weeks of storage (p > 0.05), however, the dough quality deteriorates on further storage (p < 0.05). The water mobility and the ice melting temperature of the stored doughs varied as evidenced by nuclear magnetic resonance and diferential scanning calorimetry measurements, respectively. The incorporation of xanthan gum and trehalose could possibly assist to retain the moisture contents in the dough, and retain the activity of yeast in the frozen dough, respectively. Keywords β-Glucan concentrate · Frozen dough · Dough infation · Water mobility · Microstructure Introduction Obesity is a major global challenge, in particular, in the developed countries. It is well established that the least intake of dietary fber has been associated to the increased incidence of obesity. Intake of dietary fber (DF) contrib- utes remarkably towards maintenance and improvement of human health. High dietary fber foods and whole grain con- sumption have been associated with a lower risk of several diet related diseases including cardiovascular disease, hyper- tension, diabetes, obesity and gastrointestinal disorders [1]. β-D-glucans—a soluble dietary fbers with a mixed-linkage (1 → 3; 1 → 4) has been proven clinically for its serum cho- lesterol lowering efect leading to a minimum risk of heart disease. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) [2] and the European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA) [3] have approved the health benefts of β-glucan. Additionally, the β-glucan incorporated bread reduced low- density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and increased insulin resistance in type 2 diabetic patients [4, 5]. In recent times, plenty of literature are available on β-glucan incorporated bread/pasta and allied food products. The characterization of β-glucan concentrate (BGC) and its functionality have been investigated by our group [6, 7], and the incorporation of 5% β-glucan concentrate into brown wheat four (BWF) was optimized to produce Arabic bread [8]. Additionally, the incorporation of 0.25% hydrocolloids (e.g., xanthan and guar gum) into the BWF/BGC improved the dough structure substantially. Since its inception in the 1970s, the frozen dough becomes attractive to consumers as an alternative to con- ventional dough. The on-site bake-of process with frozen dough is a novel baking technology, where the prepared dough stored in a frozen state prior to baking [9]. The size of the global frozen dough market is worth of 18.59 bil- lion USD in 2020, which is estimated to reach a valuation of 27.44 billion USD at the end of 2025 [10]. Still North * Jasim Ahmed jaahmed@kisr.edu.kw; jahmed2k@yahoo.com 1 Food and Nutrition Program, Environment & Life Sciences Research Center, Kuwait Institute for Scientifc Research, P.O. Box 24885, 13109 Safat, Kuwait