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High bread baking performance needs consistent flour quality. Often, however, you face wide fluctuations in raw material quality and price. That can stop you delivering consistent quality to your customers. When flour has low cereal alpha-amylase content, Fungamyl^® can help. Adding Fungamyl^® corrects flour so it can deliver the expected end-product characteristics.  

How fungal alpha-amylases correct flour

Adding fungal α-amylases to flour supplements native α-amylase activity. Fungal α-amylases boost dextrin production rates with no risk of excessive dextrinization. The result is better fermentation rates, gas production, crumb structure and volume. 

Starch is made up of two types of polymers; amylose and amylopectin. Both are made up of α-D-glucose molecules linked together.  

Cereal α-amylase randomly cleaves the α-1,4 bonds of damaged or gelatinized starch into smaller fragments called dextrins. Cereal β-amylase generates maltose from the dextrins with low molecular weight. Yeast contains a maltase (α-glucosidase). This breaks the maltose into glucose molecules. This glucose is an energy source for the yeast to ferment. It also contributes to crust color.  

The amount of a-amylase is dependent on growth conditions. Sound flour has enough native β-amylase for this process. But it doesn't always have enough native α-amylase to produce the dextrins needed. That limits the ability of β-amylase to produce maltose and slows dough fermentation rates. 

Adding α-amylase to flour to supplement native α-amylase activity corrects this problem. That results in a consistent flour that has the same amount of α-amylase every time. It also leads to faster fermentation rates, improved gas production and oven spring. The final bread has better volume, a finer, more even crumb structure and improved crust color. 

There’s no risk of excessive dextrinization with fungal α-amylases. That’s because wheat starch begins to gelatinize at 60°C, and fungal α-amylases become inactive at around 55°C. So when most starch is available for dextrinization, much of the enzyme is already inactive.