Rheological properties and bread making performance of commercial wholegrain oat flours

Three commercial wholegrain oat (WO) flours from Finland (WOF), Ireland (WOI) and Sweden (WOS) were evaluated for their bread making ability with the objective of finding predictive relationships between flour physicochemical properties and bread quality. Overall, significant differences were found in the bread making properties of the WO flours. Good bread quality was obtained when using WOS and WOI flour since breads showed high specific loaf volume and slice height as well as low density and hardness. Low quality breads were obtained when WOF flour was used. In addition, positive effects on oat bread quality were observed for low batter viscosity and high deformability, as obtained for WOS and WOI. Based on the physicochemical analysis of the flours, water hydration capacity was found to be the main reason for increased elasticity of WOF batters. Small flour particle size, damaged starch granules and high protein content were identified as the key factors causing increased water hydration capacity. These findings suggest that WO flours with coarse particle size, limited starch damage and low protein content result in superior oat bread quality.