Bromate, flour improvement

This section covers all the additives and treatments that are added or applied to flour. Some of these qualify as permitted flour treatments in law. The term flour improver is also used as a synonym. In this work the term improver is restricted to the compound improvers that are added to bread doughs. These mixtures tend to contain not only flour treatments but other required ingredients as well such as emulsifiers. The statutory additions that are made to flour for nutritional reasons are excluded. Also excluded are some of the substances that have historically been used but have now been universally banned. Some substances such as potassium bromate that are banned in the UK but are still legal elsewhere are covered. 

The flour improver would contain sufficient L-cysteine hydrochloride to give 35 mg kg-1 of flour (equivalent to around 27 mg kg-1 of L-cysteine) with sufficient potassium bromate to give 25 mg kg-1 of flour and sufficient ascorbic acid to give 50 mg kg-1 of flour. The above assumes a flour of 12% protein that has had added to it up to 20 mg kg-1 potassium bromate. Alternatively, with an untreated flour all the potassium bromate would be in the improver. 

Figure 4.3 Two CBP loaves from a commercial plant bakery. Both are made with untreated and unbleached white flour with full-fat, enzyme-active soya flour in the recipe (left) using potassium bromate and ascorbic acid as oxidising improvers and mixed under partial vacuum, and (right) using ascorbic acid as the sole oxidising improver and mixed in a 70% oxygen...

Additives are used in flour milling and bread-making to improve the texture and colour of breads ( improvers such as potassium bromate and cysteine—a naturally occurring amino-acid), and the texture of cakes " (chlorine, bromate and various emulsifying agents). 

Flours are commonly treated with additives and enrichment premixes to standardize quality and meet regulations. The treatments commonly consist of flour bleaching, maturing or aging, enzyme supplementation, and addition of the enrichment to supplement selected minerals and vitamins. Hard wheat flours are, in some instances, oxidized with azodicarbonamide, ascorbic acid and/or, in some countries, with potassium bromate in order to improve functionality. Soft wheat flours are in some instances chlorinated to produce bleached cake flours. The normal range of chlorination ranges... 

Potassium bromate (KBrOj) Oxidizing agent used to improve the baking properties of flour. It enhances the formation of disulfide bonds and improves bread volume and crumb texture. 

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