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.
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