Starting the experiments for my project

I started the experiments for my project last week.  I am looking at the effect of various bread dough components on dough strength.  Initially, I had planned to measure dough strength with a spread test, measuring the width and height of dough balls every hour and then comparing the extent to which they flattened.  This test proved to be a good method for determining dough toughness but gave no information about extensibility, a parameter more closely correlated to baking quality, so I began searching for a good method to measure extensibility that didn’t require expensive equipment.  I went back to my college for an afternoon to meet with a professor with expertise in rheology and he helped me to better understand what I wanted to measure and how I might be able to use non-traditional techniques to obtain my measurements.

I then met with Rafael, Todd, and Dan who helped me figure out what equipment was available at Novozymes that could be of use.  They all agreed that the texture analyzer available in the bake lab with a ball probe and window attachment would be a good machine to look at.  I was able to find a program, originally designed for pancakes that would measure toughness (force exerted by the ball probe to move through the material) and extensibility (distance traveled by the ball probe before the material broke).  Dan taught me how to use it and I’ve since performed a few trials that appear promising.  I get a much better idea of what is happening to the dough with this method.  For example, when I was measuring spread I had two doughs that appeared equally weak, however, when these two doughs were subjected to texture analysis, one dough had a much higher extensibility indicating that it would probably be better for baking because the dough would be better able to hold the expanding gas cells.