As bakeries expand their production capabilities and their daily use of very large quantities of flour, the storage and handling of flour in bags becomes impractical. Historically, millers started to add chemical oxidizing agents to the flour to reduce the long storage time during which the flour aged naturally. As flour naturally ages, its baking performance improves as proteins are strengthened. Maturing agents are additives that similarly change the baking properties of flours by strengthening the wheat gluten network in a shorter time.
Although chlorine dioxide and nitrogen trichloride were widely used to age flour during the early years of flour treatment, these chemicals are no longer used in the United States, and were replaced primarily with azodicarbonamide (ADA) up to 45 ppm added to white flour milled from hard red winter wheat, or with potassium bromate up to 50 ppm in white flour milled from hard red spring wheat. However, both ADA and bromate have fallen out of favor and find limited use today.
While bromate is no longer allowed in many parts of the world, it still is allowed in the US. Bakers and millers are now encouraged by the FDA to discontinue the use of potassium bromate for the manufacture of bakery foods, and some millers have substituted ascorbic acid (AA) or blends of ascorbic acid and ADA for potassium bromate. While the addition of potassium bromate to flour must be declared as such in the ingredient statement, azodicarbonamide is legally declared as a bleaching agent, even though it has no whitening effect on flour. Recently, many bakeries have also removed ADA from bakery products due to consumer concerns.
Considering current consumer preferences for cleaner labels, and less chemicals in foods most bakeries have limited their use of maturing agents to ascorbic acid.
Typically, bakers may prefer to add the ascorbic acid at the bakery to allow adjustment of usage levels based on variety of product being made. Ascorbic acid can be added to the flour up to 200 ppm. If it is added to the flour, the flour should be labeled “ascorbic acid added as a dough conditioner”. Even though ascorbic acid is also known as Vitamin C, the baker cannot claim the addition of this vitamin since Vitamin C loses its vitamin function during dough processing and baking.
In addition to ascorbic acid, bakers may use oxidative enzymes to strengthen the flour proteins. In the US these are only added at the bakery because enzymatic flour treatment is limited to addition of alpha-amylase.
Did this blog post spark any questions about maturing agents? If so, post your question below and our baking experts will quickly respond.
We make sandwich white bread in TRIANGULAR in shape.The bread when baked have more holes in the side where the width is more . that means ,at 80% the dough has risen is taken for baking,while baking the dough raises and more wholes are seen as it gets baked, Pl note in the triangle , the wider portion is on top and the peak is facing down wards . We have added enzymes, oxidase, xylase and also lepase with amylase.
How to get better texture as the customer is insisting the whole be reduced and the size should be ok,Pl reply
The cell structure of the “triangular” shaped loaf will tend to be more open due to more pan space to fill at the wide top of the pan. I recommend increasing scaling weight of dough and have LESS loaf expansion during proofing. This will result in a more dense cell structure in this uniquely shaped bread, reducing the holes in the expanded part of the loaf. Also, you should check for dough development and possibly look at dropping the yeast level slightly
