Imaging of the Fermentation Process of Bread Dough and the Grain Structure of Baked Breads by Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Fermentation processes of bread doughs were traced by MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), which suggests that punching and rounding treatment after the first fermentation promotes the development of elasticity and extensibility of gluten fibrils that makes thin grain walls of the pores connecting between adjacent pores with small holes, and a thin smooth crust after baking. While pore generation was small, expansion of the dough was low, gluten networks formed were large and coarse, and gluten fibrils were undeveloped in the frozen dough. Prefermentation could not essentially alleviate the inferior properties of the frozen dough. The grain structures of the bread using frozen dough were characterized by thick network walls without the connection between pores and a thick crust with rough surface.