Chemometrics assess quality of breadmaking starters

Chemometric techniques were used to evaluate 15 wheat doughs containing different starter cultures to establish quality indexes based on objective measures. Correlations were determined among microbial starters, consumer acceptance and analytical variables, and variables necessary for quality assessment were reduced. In stepwise discriminant analysis six variables were significant (p 0.95) and used in discriminant functions. Dendrograms showed similarities among cases. Strong correlations were found between sensory scores and some fermentative, biochemical and physical measures. The same variables were significant in formation of clusters by K-means clustering analysis. In factor analysis, the first three factors, accounting for 70% of variability, related to the same variables. Relationships between overall acceptance and other parameters explained differences in sensory evaluation