F

ENZYMATIC FLOUR
STANDARDISATION
Improving general
flour quality

by Maria Olsen, Senior Group Bakery Manager, DuPont Nutrition & Health

hanges in flour quality are and will

continue to be a problem for the
bakery industry. Large amounts of
grain are processed by the milling
industry and many resources used
to secure the flour produced have a
consistent quality.
To solve these quality problems,
millers are accustomed to adding
various functional ingredients to flour, mainly oxidants such as
ascorbic acid and enzymes such as the traditional standard alphaamylases and the technological advanced xylanases.
The goal when adding these ingredients is not only to maintain
a uniform performance but also to improve the general quality of
the flour. Due to the increased use of enzyme technology by flourmills, rapid advances are constantly being made in improving
general flour quality.
DuPont Nutrition & Health offers a wide range of enzymes to
make it easy to optimize almost any type of flour. The most used
types of enzymes are:
GRINDAMYL A Bakery Enzymes for standardizing baking
performance
POWERBake Xylanases for optimizing baking performance

a low falling number and possesses insufficient bread making

qualities.
The baking performance of flours with varying levels of
amylase activity, represented by variations in falling numbers, is
illustrated in figure 1. Clearly, the most pleasant crumb structure
and bread appearance are obtained with a falling number in 250300 corresponding to a moderate enzyme activity.
The amount GRINDAMYL A required to adjust the
falling number of flour is determined most easily by using
the curve shown in figure two which specifies the amount of
GRINDAMYL A to be used when adjusting a given falling
number to 250. It is both highly important and necessary to
consider which concentration of GRINDAMYL A to use
depending on the dosage equipment.
GRINDAMYL A is widely used by the bakery industry as an
alternative to malt flour containing cereal alpha-amylase. Two

Flour standardisation using GRINDAMYL A

As flour is a natural product, the content of alpha-amylase

varies depending on several factors such as growth and weather
conditions of the crop. Change in quality due to this can be
overcome by supplementing the flour with fungal alpha-amylase
GRINDAMYL A at the mill. This standardisation provides the
necessary basic baking properties to the flour.
The GRINDAMYL A provides the following benefits:
Flour improvement due to starch modification.
Higher gas production giving increased volume.
Improved crust colour due to Maillard browning
Improved flavor due to the Maillard reactions
In order to measure the level of alpha-amylase activity in flour,
different analytical methods are used. The falling number method
(Hagberg) is the common standard to determine the level of
endogenous enzyme activity in the flour. A high falling number
indicates low naturally occurring alpha-amylase, a low number
indicating high alpha-amylase activity. The optimum falling
number is considered to be 250-300.
A high falling number can be adjusted by the addition of
GRINDAMYL A. However, sprouted wheat results in flour with
40 | October 2016 - Milling and Grain

Figure 1: Pan bread produced from flour with varying levels of

enzyme activity expressed as falling number

Figure 2: Fungal amylase addition chart GRINDAMYL A 1000

Figure 3: Illustrates the action pattern on starch

Figure 4: Illustrating the volume improvement that can be

achieved with use of xylanase

of the main reasons for using fungal alpha-amylase are that it is

more tolerant towards overdosing compared to cereal amylase
and side activities are low.
Fungal amylase is deactivated at an earlier stage of the baking
process. This eliminates the risk of excessive dextrin formation at
high temperatures, a process that can result in bread with a sticky
and gummy crumb structure.

beta-amylase in flour, increasing the doughs content of maltose

and small dextrins with reducing end groups. Figure 3 illustrates
the action pattern on starch. Beta-amylase is present in excessive
amounts in the flour. The formation of sugars with reducing
end groups increases the level of Maillard reactions, which are
responsible for colour and, to a certain degree, flavour formation
in bread.

Effects of GRINDAMYL A

Flour optimisation with POWERBake Xylanase

Fungal alpha-amylase modifies the accessible starch, i.e. the

damaged starch in the flour, at the dough stage. This modification
increases the formation of dextrins in the dough, resulting in a
positive impact on both volume and crust colour. The dextrins
serves as nutrition for the yeast, the yeast produces more gas and,
thus, the final volume of the bread increases.
The dextrins are also more easily degraded than starch by the

Xylanase (hemicellulase) is being increasingly used by the

milling industry to optimize the baking performance of flour.
There are two reasons for enriching wheat flour with xylanase:
To upgrade flour quality
To reduce the natural variation in flour baking performance
In both cases, it is possible to obtain increased flour processing
flexibility without compromising quality.

DESIGN
BUILD

Norwood and Company

EXPAND
With four generations of experience in the grain, feed,
flour milling and wood industries our family would be
more than happy to help you design, build, repair or
expand any new or existing grain facilities
We also offer a large variety of new and
used grain equipment to help meet your needs
norwood_hp.indd 1

REPAIR
Contact us on:
Fred Norwood, President; Tel: +1 405 834 2043
Brandon Norwood, Vice President; Tel: +1 785 822 4109

www.norwoodandco.com
Milling and Grain - October 2016 |10/02/2015
41

17:30

Figure 5: Structure of arabinoxylan (hemicellulose)

POWERBake Xylanase provides additional benefits obtained

by using GRINDAMYL A and the following improvements
during the bread-making process can be seen:
Improved dough characteristics
Tolerance towards changes in flour quality and process
parameters
Improved volume
Improved bread appearance
General optimisation of dough quality with POWERBake
Xylanase has been seen to result in quality improvement
and uniformity in the final bread. See figure 4 illustrating
the volume improvement that can be achieved with use of
xylanase.

Mechanism of xylanase

POWERBake modifies the arabinoxylan, improving the

dough characteristics and forming a better gluten structure with
an improved gasretaining ability. The development of a flexible
and homogeneous gluten structure is not only due to insufficient
strong gluten. Arabinoxylan, also referred to as the non-starch
polysaccharide, plays an important role, together with protein,
in forming the cell walls, surrounding the starch granules.
Arabinoxylan makes up 60-70 percent of the endosperm cell
wall, giving wheat flour an arabinoxylan content of 2-3 percent.
A arabinoxylan structure is illustrated in figure 5.
Arabinoxylan is not only important due to its effect on
gluten development in bread-making. It also has a high waterabsorbing capacity and contributes to increased dough viscosity.

42 | October 2016 - Milling and Grain

Figure 6: Water biding in dough: Use

of flour milling enzymes

Arabinoxylan can be divided into two fractions based on its water

solubility: Water Extractable Arabinoxylan (WE-AX) and Water
Un-extractable Arabinoxylan (WU-AX).
The water-binding capacity of these fractions is believed
to make a significant contribution to the functionality of
arabinoxylan. WU-AX can bind 10 times its own weight in water,
while WE-AX binds only 4-5 times its weight. The action of
xylanase dissolves WU-AX, at the same time releasing water
for improved gluten formation and alignment. The rigid cell
wall fragments (WU-AX) will then no longer disrupt the gluten
network.
The distribution of water among the constitutional parts of the
flour at the dough stage is very important to the bread making
process, both during processing and in the finished bread. As
illustrated in figure 5, starch represents 80-85 percent of flour and
absorbs 40-45 percent of the water added to the dough, protein
represents 10-14 percent and absorbs 30-35 percent of the water
whereas arabinoxylan represents only 2-3 percent and absorbs
around 25 percent of the water.
By enzymatic modification of arabinoxylan, this water serves
as reservoir for the hydration of gluten, thus improving the gluten
development and, at a later stage of the baking process, the starch
and, thus, improve the softness of the bread.
DuPont Danisco Enzyme is easy to handle as it is dust-free
microgranulate with good free-flowing properties. The enzymes
come in many concentrations and can fulfill the needs for modern
handling in micro dosing equipment.
www.danisco.com/enzymes

Our most important ingredient

is the dialogue with our customers.
How do you become the world market leader in
flour improvement and enrichment? With almost
90 years of intensive application research and the
constant search for innovative solutions, certainly.
But ultimately it is the constant dialogue with our
over 1000 mill customers around the world that
sets Mhlenchemie apart. Our flour experts gain
a first-hand understanding of your challenges,
and return to our labs and test bakeries to create
solutions that are a perfect fit. Thats what makes
the difference between satisfied and delighted
customers and thats what makes us successful.

Flour improvement
Flour standardization
Enzyme systems
Fortification with vitamins
and minerals
Flour analysis
Applications services
Metering equipment
for micro-ingredients

German Quality made by Mhlenchemie.

A member of the Stern-Wywiol Gruppe

info@muehlenchemie.com

www.muehlenchemie.com