Changes of crust and crumb firmness of part-baked Sangak bread packaged in modified atmosphere during storage time

Part-baked bakery products are an effective solution to postpone staling in bakery products. Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is considered as a solution for storage of the part-baked products. In order to investigate the effect of part-baking process and modified atmosphere packaging on the textural characteristics, part-baked Sangak bread was packaged in three gas compositions included %100 CO2, %50 CO2: %50 N2, %25 CO2: %75 N2 and air as a control stored at 25 °C for 21 days. During the storage, crust and crumb firmness of the part-baked as well as fully baked bread were evaluated. Results showed that none of the textural parameters are influenced by the MAP atmosphere and these changes are only as the function of the storage time. Kinetic study of firmness changes during 72 hr after removing part-baked samples from MAP, before and after full-baking, showed that with increasing storage time, the rate constant of crust firming reaction decreases and rate constant of crumb firming reaction increases.