Hans-Dieter-Belitz-Institute for Cereal Grain Research

Micro-Scale Baking Test

The classification of the German wheat cultivars according to baking performance is carried out on the basis of the loaf volumes obtained by a baking test called "Rapid-Mix Test". By technical reasons 1000 g of flour are necessary for this baking test. For wheat breeding and for the determination of the effect of flour fractions or additives it is necessary to use lower quantitites of flour because only a limited amount of material is available in these cases. Since the baking test is the most important criterion for the evaluation of the properties of flour and flour additives, methods have been developed that can be carried out with low quantities of flour (10 g).
Ingredients for the micro-scale baking test are flour (10 g), yeast, sodium chloride, sucrose, water and possibly an additive. The ingredients are filled into the mixing vessel which is held at 15°C (left). The mixer is fitted together and a dough is mixed for 1 min at 1250 rpm (middle). The final dough (right) has a temperature of 25 to 26°C. It is removed from the mixer, hand-moulded to spherical pieces, and put into the proofer for 20 min.
The fermented dough is homogenised on a dough rounder (left) to a sherical dough piece (middle) that is sheeted by passing it through the rolls of a pasta machine (right).
The resulting oval dough piece (left) is rolled up to give a cylindrically shaped loaf, compressed (middle) and allowed to proof for another 35 to 45 min (right).
The dough is then baked for 10 min at 230°C (left). The oven is saturated with vapour of 50 mL of water prior to baking. The final bread (middle) is allowed to cool down. The volume of the bread is determined by measuring the amount of water displaced by the bread (right). A vessel containing 500 mL of water is placed on a balance which is then adjusted to 0 g. The bread is impregnated with paraffin at 80°C for 3 s, allowed to cool for 10 s, and then immersed in the water. The mass of the displaced water corresponds to the volume of the bread.

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