Structural formation during bread baking in a combined microwave-convective oven determined by sub-second in-situ synchrotron X-ray microtomography
Journal article, 2023

A new concept has been developed for characterizing the real-time evolution of the three-dimensional pore and lamella microstructure of bread during baking using synchrotron X-ray microtomography (SRµCT). A commercial, combined microwave-convective oven was modified and installed at the TOMCAT synchrotron tomography beamline at the Swiss Light Source (SLS), to capture the 3D dough-to-bread structural development in-situ at the micrometer scale with an acquisition time of 400 ms. This allowed characterization and quantitative comparison of three baking technologies: (1) convective heating, (2) microwave heating, and (3) a combination of convective and microwave heating. A workflow for automatic batchwise image processing and analysis of 3D bread structures (1530 analyzed volumes in total) was established for porosity, individual pore volume, elongation, coordination number and local wall thickness, which allowed for evaluation of the impact of baking technology on the bread structure evolution. The results showed that the porosity, mean pore volume and mean coordination number increase with time and that the mean local cell wall thickness decreases with time. Small and more isolated pores are connecting with larger and already more connected pores as function of time. Clear dependencies are established during the whole baking process between the mean pore volume and porosity, and between the mean local wall thickness and the mean coordination number. This technique opens new opportunities for understanding the mechanisms governing the structural changes during baking and discern the parameters controlling the final bread quality.

Synchrotron X-ray microtomography

Convective

Microwave

Baking

In-situ

Image analysis

Bread

Oven

Author

Florian Schott

Lunds tekniska högskola

Sven Isaksson

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Emanuel Larsson

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Lunds tekniska högskola

Federica Marone

Paul Scherrer Institut

C. Ohgren

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Magnus Röding

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

S. Hall

Lunds tekniska högskola

Niklas Lorén

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Chalmers, Physics, Nano and Biophysics

Rajmund Mokso

Lunds tekniska högskola

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Birgitta Wäppling Raaholt

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Food Research International

0963-9969 (ISSN) 18737145 (eISSN)

Vol. 173 113283

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.foodres.2023.113283

More information

Latest update

8/11/2023