Post-sprouting thermal treatment of green barley malt to produce functional clean-label ingredients: Impact on fermentation, bread-making properties and bread quality

[Display omitted] •Thermal treatments were applied to post-sprouted barley grains.•Enzymatic profile was assessed before and after the thermal treatments.•High enzymatic activity impaired the resulting bread-making properties.•Thermally treated malts improved dough fermentation, bread-making and bread quality.•Treatments at 70 °C/40 min showed the best overall performance in bread production. Malt flour represents a potential clean label bread improver, but a high enzymatic activity can lead to some bread defects. Thus, this study was focused on applying different thermal treatments (10 and 40 min; 70–90 °C) to green barley malt in order to promote a partial enzyme inactivation. The addition of 1.5 g of thermally treated malt (TTM) per 100 g of flour in wheat bread formulation was evaluated regarding the resulting bread-making properties, dough fermentation and overall bread quality. Activity of starch-degrading enzymes was not detectable above 80 °C/10 min. TTM incorporation improved the gas production by up to 60% during fermentation, mainly in formulations to which malts thermally treated under mild conditions have been added. Compared to untreated malt, thermal treatment reduced dough thermal weakening, improved gel strength during gelatinization and maintained low setback values. Bread collapse observed by baking follow-up was related to gas inflation and low mechanical resistance. Formulations with the addition of malts thermally treated at 70 °C for 40 min resulted in breads with higher specific volume, improved coloration and a crumb with slightly smaller pores than control and untreated malts. Thus, thermal treatment can be used as a technique to produce standardized malted flour to be used as clean label bread improvers.