Impact of wheat bran micronization on dough properties and bread quality: Part II - Quality, antioxidant and nutritional properties of bread.

To investigate the impact of superfine grinding of wheat bran on bread quality, antioxidant and nutritional properties, bran with different particle sizes (coarse, D of 362.3 μm; medium, 60.4 μm; superfine, 11.3 μm) were produced and fortified to white bread at three levels (10, 20 and 30%). At 20% fortification, compared to coarse bran, superfine bran increased the hardness and reduced the brightness of bread crumb by 56.3 and 3.30%, respectively, while it decreased bread's cell size by 10.7% and insignificantly impacted on bread's specific volume and porosity. Superfine bran retarded bread staling by 8.3% than coarse bran. It resulted in significantly better sensory attributes of bread in taste, texture and general palatability, and the fortified bread was overall acceptable (score > 6). Moreover, faster release of antioxidants (285-353% higher k), slower release of glucose (10.8% lower k), 3.76% less rapidly digestible starch, 5.65% more slowly digestible starch and 13.2% more resistant starch were found in the superfine group than the coarse one. Results demonstrated the potential of 20% fortification of superfine bran in developing fibre-enriched bread with satisfactory quality, increased antioxidant property and improved glycaemic modulation.