Effects of Dry Sourdough on Bread-Making Quality and Acrylamide Content
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript discusses how the issue of acrylamide formation in bakery products can be addressed through sour dough fermentation. I have a few comments,
First the manuscript needs to be edited for language issues as some sentences are unclear. There are also grammatical error throughout the paper.
Intro: explain why different species of LAB can impact acrylamide formation differently
Methods: what is the composition of the SD culture used in this study? The LAB species matter, therefore this is critical info
Why was a bakery improver used and what was it? this has an impact of rheology and baking, as such it is unclear why this was used
Why didn't the authors use Farinograph to measure dough rheology? Also, this test gives a starting point for baking requirements
Explain HPLC analysis of acrylamide in more detail (conditions of analysis, data analysis and equipment used)
Results: generally understandable with errors in language
Why did acrylamide content increase in SD 3 and SD4?
Conclusion: more focus on acrylamide content is needed
Author Response
20 September 2021
Dear Referee,
We would like to thank the referee for the close reading and for the proper suggestions. We hope that we provide all the answers to the reviewer’s comments.
Thank you very much for the recommendations to publish our paper entitled “Effects of dry sourdough on bread-making quality and acrylamide content”.
The present version of the paper has been revised according to the reviewer’s suggestions.
Referee comments: The manuscript discusses how the issue of acrylamide formation in bakery products can be addressed through sour dough fermentation. I have a few comments,
First the manuscript needs to be edited for language issues as some sentences are unclear. There are also grammatical error throughout the paper.
Response: We would like to thank to the referee for her/his close reading of our manuscript. The entire manuscript was now revised by an English teacher.
Referee comments: Intro: explain why different species of LAB can impact acrylamide formation differently
Response: We added in the manuscript in the introduction part more informations related to why different species of LAB can impact acrylamide formation differently
Referee comments: Methods: what is the composition of the SD culture used in this study? The LAB species matter, therefore this is critical info
Response: Yes, indeed the SD culture used is very important for this study. We completed our study with more informations related to our culture used in this study. This was an SD provided to us by Enzymes@Derivates Romania, very used in our country. This is the only SD that Enzymes@Derivates sells in our country so we did not have other options. The technical sheet of SD did not present any informations related to what LAB this culture have. It is an SD obtained through wheat fermentation based on its own microorganisms. The dry of the fermented wheat flour is very gentle in order that SD to present a high LAB content. We completed in the manuscript what LAB species wheat flour developed through fermentation according to the international literature. We also attach-presented below the technical sheet of our SD used in order that the referee to see the technical detail of our SD sample.
Referee comments: Why was a bakery improver used and what was it? this has an impact of rheology and baking, as such it is unclear why this was used
Response: The wheat flour used by us was from SC. Pambac as the methodology used (Mixolab, Falling Number and Alveograph were also from SC. Pambac – the analysis were made to this company). In Romania, and not only all the flours are additives ones. Our research is a part of a doctoral thesis in collaboration with industry and Enzymes & Derivates Romania –see acknowledgments section. In our research we wanted to offer to the industry solutions for reducing acrylamide content for bread. We discuss with SC. Pambac company chef engineer from laboratory (Mrs Tampau) and she told us that she want to put some additives (we mention now in the manuscript which were) in the wheat flour since is of a high extraction rate and that in this form cannot be used to produce bread of a good quality. In an unadditive form the wheat flour presented to Alveograph a W of 86 and a P/L ratio of 3.07. So it was of a very poor quality for bread making. In this form the wheat flour did not presented adequate characteristics for bread to the industrial level. Because we wanted to made bread to an industrial level, we took samples from the same part of the industrial oven in order to obtain correct data to be applied in industry. Therefore the bakery improver addition was necessary. We only changed the doses of the sourdough used in the bread recipe, so we believe that our data are concluding ones and applicable in industry (the main objective of our study).
Referee comments: Why didn't the authors use Farinograph to measure dough rheology? Also, this test gives a starting point for baking requirements
Response: The Farinograph device is not very used in our country. To our knowledge only 2 companies has Farinograph in our country namely S.C. Dizing S.A. and Farinsan Giurgiu from Bucharest. Also IBA Bucharest a research institute has this device. Otherwise in Romania the companies are using Chopin devices like Alveograph and Mixolab. In Romania exists more than 70 devices such as Alveograph and more than 20 such as Mixolab. We do not have access to Farinograph. All our experiments were made to SC Pambac – see acknowledgments section and this company one of the largest in Romania don’t have Farinograph. However, the Mixolab device provide similar data to Farinograph in the first stage of the Mixolab curve. Between Mixolab and Farinograph parameters are significant correlations (with an r higher than 0.90). Are a lot of articles exist in this regard –see some examples like https://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=73090; https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00217-010-1310-y
https://agro.icm.edu.pl/agro/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-325d69ae-19ff-4324-95c3-85fc3d3c7a0c
More, in our study we obtained to Mixolab similar data to Farinograph in our study: water absortion value, dough development time, dough stability – see table 1. Other analysis made on Farinograph will provide similar data.
Referee comments: Explain HPLC analysis of acrylamide in more detail (conditions of analysis, data analysis and equipment used)
Response: We completed now in the manuscript in a more detailed way the HPLC analysis for acrylamide determination.
Referee comments: Results: generally understandable with errors in language
Response: We want to thank to the referee for she/he appreciation and close reading of our manuscript. The entire manuscript was now revised by an English teacher.
Referee comments: Why did acrylamide content increase in SD 3 and SD4?
Response: We completed now the manuscript with more informations related to why acrylamide increases in SD 3 and SD4 samples.
Referee comments: Conclusion: more focus on acrylamide content is needed
Response: We want to thank to the referee for his/her comment. We agree that more informations must be put into the conclusions part about acrylamide content of the samples. Therefore, we completed now the manuscript conclusions part with more informations related to acrylamide data.
Sincerely,
Codină Georgiana et. al.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript reports important information on the application of dry sourdough in bread-making. This manuscript is organized well and deserves to be published. There are two points that might need revise to enhance the value of this manuscript. Firstly, there is no explanation on the method to prepare dry sourdough. Since this manuscript primarily focus on application of dry sourdough on bread-making, the procedure to prepare dry sourdough should be included in material section. Secondly, there is no reference for the acrylamide extraction and analysis procedure. If authors developed the HPLC method, they better include HPLC chromatogram and other supporting data including recovery rate, etc.
Author Response
20 September 2021
Dear Referee,
We would like to thank the referee for the close reading and for the proper suggestions. We hope that we provide all the answers to the reviewer’s comments.
Thank you very much for the recommendations to publish our paper entitled “Effects of dry sourdough on bread-making quality and acrylamide content”.
The present version of the paper has been revised according to the reviewer’s suggestions.
Referee comments: This manuscript reports important information on the application of dry sourdough in bread-making. This manuscript is organized well and deserves to be published. There are two points that might need revise to enhance the value of this manuscript.
Response: We would like to thank to the referee for her/his close reading of our manuscript and her/his appreciations and recommendation to publish our paper.
Referee comments: Firstly, there is no explanation on the method to prepare dry sourdough. Since this manuscript primarily focus on application of dry sourdough on bread-making, the procedure to prepare dry sourdough should be included in material section.
Response: Yes, indeed the SD culture used is very important for this study. This culture it is ready prepared being in a powder form. So we did not prepare it. We just added in the wheat flour. We completed our study with more informations related to our culture used in this study. This was an SD provided to us by Enzymes@Derivates Romania, very used in our country. This is the only SD that Enzymes@Derivates sells in our country so we did not have other options. The technical sheet of SD did not present any informations related to what LAB this culture have. It is an SD obtained through wheat fermentation based on its own microorganisms. The dry of the fermented wheat flour is very gentle in order that SD to present a high LAB content. We completed in the manuscript what LAB species wheat flour developed through fermentation according to the international literature. We also attach the technical sheet – presented below of our SD used in order that the referee to see the technical detail of our SD sample.
Referee comments: Secondly, there is no reference for the acrylamide extraction and analysis procedure. If authors developed the HPLC method, they better include HPLC chromatogram and other supporting data including recovery rate, etc.
Response: We completed now in the manuscript in a more detailed way the HPLC analysis for acrylamide determination. The acrylamide analysis was made to ANSVSA Romania in Bucharest. We attach to you the chromatograms of our samples - presented below but we do not think that we must put them in the manuscript since we have figure 2 and so we would repeat their representation.
Chromatograms of acrylamide samples with different levels of SD addition in wheat flour
Sincerely,
Codină Georgiana et. al.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
