Innovativ Baking with Electric Shocks

VIENNA - Oct. 25, 2019 - PRLog -- Electric shocks are used to heat gluten free bread from the inside – successful baking while saving energy and time compared to conventional baking applying heat from the outside. A recent study from the Institute of Food Technology of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) Vienna was just published in an international journal. A technology named "Ohmic heating" was used and adapted to the production of gluten free bread. First results show superior quality of the Ohmic bread while energy and time were saved during the manufacturing process.

The principle is well known from the good old light bulb: an electrical current passing through a wire heats it up until it glows. This is due to its electrical resistance and the Ohmic law leading to the dissipation of electrical energy into heat. Taking a bread dough instead of a metal wire results in the same effect – it's not glowing but heating up. And the heat can be used to bake the product. Exactly this was done by a team around Prof. Henry Jäger from the Institute of Food Technology at BOKU Vienna. This smart solution was in particular used for gluten free bread that is challenging to bake.

Original publication: Ohmic Heating – a Novel Approach for Gluten-Free Bread Baking.D. Bender, M. Gratz, S. Vogt, T. Fauster, B. Wicki, S. Pichler, M. Kinner, H. Jäger & R. Schoenlechner, Food Bioprocess Technol (2019) 12: 1603. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11947-019-02324-9