Characterisation of the staling process of wholemeal bread

The objectives of this work were to characterise on a broad basis the staling process of wholemeal bread and to attempt to find the relationship between the instrumental and sensory measures. During seven consecutive days of bread storage at room temperature, the rheological, sensory and some physico-chemical analyses were carried out. The greatest changes in the instrumental measures, between which some statistically significant correlations were found, occurred in the first 24 h of storage. On the other hand, the sensory characteristics were changing subtly over the whole period of seven-day storage and the bread was still of good sensory quality after three days what made it difficult to establish the relationship between instrumental and sensory measures. It appeared that intense and quite stable nutty taste and aroma of wholemeal bread, characteristic of the products from high-extract flours, prolonged its consumer-accepted sensory quality.