Research Article Received: 23 July 2012 Revised: 15 December 2012 Accepted article published: 19 January 2013 Published online in Wiley Online Library: (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI 10.1002/jsfa.6059 Wheat bread biofortification with rootlets, a malting by-product Deborah M Waters, a Wilma Kingston, a Fritz Jacob, b Jean Titze, a Elke K Arendt a,* and Emanuele Zannini a Abstract BACKGROUND: Barley rootlets, a malting by-product, are currently discarded or used as fodder. In this study, milled rootlets and Lactobacillus plantarum FST 1.7-fermented rootlets were incorporated into wheat bread. The objective was to formulate a high-nutrition alternative to wholemeal breads with improved technological attributes. RESULTS: Chemical analyses showed that rootlets contribute nutrients and bioactive compounds, including proteins, amino acids, fatty acids, carbohydrates, dietary fibre, polyphenols and minerals. Rootlets are particularly rich in essential amino acids, especially lysine, the typically limiting essential amino acid of cereals. Additionally, rootlets offer potential dietary fibre health benefits such as protection against cardiovascular disease, cancers and digestive disorders. CONCLUSION: Breads prepared with a (fermented) rootlet inclusion level of up to 10% compared favourably with wholemeal breads from nutritive, technological and textural perspectives. Furthermore, they were well accepted by sensory panellists. Using rootlets as a food ingredient would have the added benefit of increasing this malting by-product’s market value. c  2013 Society of Chemical Industry Keywords: biofortification; rootlets; barley malting by-products; nutrition; wheat bread; LAB fermentation INTRODUCTION Barley (Hordeum vulgare), a cereal of the Poaceae family, ranks fourth globally in both quantity produced and cultivation area. 1 It is conventionally utilised for animal fodder (∼66%) or malted for brewing (∼33%) and food applications (∼2%). 2 Globally, beer is one of the most commonly consumed alcoholic drinks, with malted barley being the primary ingredient of over 90% of all beers produced and often the sole fermentable carbohydrate source for yeast. Malt quality is intimately linked with final beer quality as well as wort and beer processability, flavour, aroma, foam formation and stability and other characteristics. Malting involves three stages: steeping (barley grains), germination (green malt) and kilning (malt). These processes render the final product, barley malt, more readily utilisable in the next stages of brewing (which is its primary use), distilling or food processing. 3 During malting, the sprouted green malt grains are also ‘cleaned’, thereby removing the protein-rich rootlets, which are currently primarily discarded or used as animal fodder. Recently, the incorporation of barley into the human diet has received renewed attention owing to increased scientific evidence showing it to be an excellent source of dietary fibre, particularly β -glucan. β -Glucan is a soluble fibre that has US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved health benefits, 4 which include decreasing the risk of heart disease and being effective in lowering blood serum glucose levels. 5,6 However, barley rootlets primarily contribute protein, essential amino acids, healthy fats, polyphenols and minerals to the diet. As such, the incorporation of rootlets into a staple food product such as bread could increase the protein content of poorer flours and thus increase the net nutritive value of the final baked goods. Local government campaigns have stressed the importance of a balanced diet and its connection with various health benefits. Thus there has been increased interest in the consumption of healthy natural foods, 5 with rootlets representing a suitable, readily available, cheap source of nutrients. This research aimed to characterise rootlets from a nutritive perspective and additionally to naturally ferment them into a lactic acid bacteria (LAB) sourdough, with subsequent incorporation of both products as functional ingredients in wheat bread. MATERIALS AND METHODS Materials and strains Barley (H. vulgare var. Sebastian) was harvested in Ireland in 2008 (Cork Malting Company, Cork, Ireland) and used to prepare the rootlets at University College Cork (UCC). Odlum’s baker’s wheat flour (Odlum Group, Dublin, Ireland), coarse wholemeal flour (Odlum Group), salt (Salt Union, Winsford, UK) and dried yeast (Mauripan, Burns, Philip and Co. Pty Ltd, Granville, Australia) were also used in the dough and bread-making recipes. Crude ∗ Correspondence to: Elke K Arendt, School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, National University of Ireland, University College Cork, College Road, Cork, Ireland. E-mail: e.arendt@ucc.ie a School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, National University of Ireland, University College Cork, College Road, Cork, Ireland b Forschungszentrum Weihenstephan f¨ ur Brau- und Lebensmittelqualitaet (BLQ), Alte Akademie 3, D-85354, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany J Sci Food Agric (2013) www.soci.org c  2013 Society of Chemical Industry