Bringing food chemistry to life

http://agsci.oregonstate.edu/academics/learning/andrew-ross-doughy

More from ACS, and appropriate to the New Year.

A video on the chemistry of champagne.

http://www.bytesizescience.com/index.cfm/2011/12/27/A-toast-to-the-chemistry-of-Champagne

Here is a still of the figure from the JAFC paper

http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/deliciousnessw09/2010/08/26/now-the-proof-is-in/

More fun about flavor chemistry here.

http://www.bytesizescience.com/index.cfm/2011/12/8/ChemMatters-Flavor-chemistry–The-science-behind-the-taste-and-smell-of-food

50% barley flour pita: with help from Leslie Mackie of Macrina in Seattle. Leslie showcased some of her breads made with barley and gave her own workshop on her breads. Leslie’s bakery is extremely well regarded – Macrina was named one of the USA’s top 10 bakeries in 2011 by  BON APPÉTIT

Fairhaven mill whole barley flour, pita, & barley  bread in the style of a baguette,.

Barley pretzels, getting ready for the lye [NaOH] dip.

The evening before: getting pain au levain with 10% barley ready for the next mornings workshop

Eat your wholegrains: barley that is!

Photos courtesy of Patrick Hayes, the leader of BARLEYWORLD

Read more: http://wholegrainsurf.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ZM44wI27

After a long hiatus the blog is being revitalized.

More molecules of the moment to come.

This is wheat I did with my weekend.

http://kneadingconferencewest.com/

reported here

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/25147/kneading-conference-west-2011

and here

http://www.farine-mc.com/2011/09/back-from-kneading-conference-west-2011.html

and here

http://reallygoodwriter.com

Pictures are courtesy of Meeghen at Breadsong who also makes a killer 80% rye bread that uses the a “scald” or porridge of pre-gelatinized rye flour as part of the process.

The breads come from the session I shared with Leslie Mackie of Macrina Bakeries Seattle on barley in breads.

Other than that I shared a long session on the science of breadmaking and grain and flour testing methods with Lee Glass MD, and Bread Baker’s Guild member.

More good news about coffee

American Chemical Society Press release 4th May 2011

“New evidence that caffeine is a healthful antioxidant in coffee”.

Is Caffeine a Good Scavenger of Oxygenated Free Radicals? Jorge Rafael Len-Carmona, & Annia Galano. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2011, 115 (15), 4538-4546.  [link]

Len-Carmona, & Galano note that caffeine [1,3,7-trimethylxanthine] is found also in “seeds, citrus fruits, olive oil, tea, and cocoa beverages“.

Their work suggested that caffeine is a good scavenger of some reactive oxygen species, but not all. Excellent ^•OH scavenging activity was reported, only “modest” scavenging of ^•OCH₃ and no scavenging of HOO^•

They cite work of others that suggest caffeine is effective against conditions related to oxidative stress in the body including Alzheimer’s disease, eye lens damage from photochemically induced reactive oxygen species, and that caffeine [actually its metabolites in humans]  may have antioxidant potential at least that of ascorbic acid .

Typically the press release was a little less guarded than the paper:  “Scientists are reporting an in-depth analysis of how the caffeine in coffee, tea, and other foods seems to protect against conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease on the most fundamental levels.” “Annia Galano and Jorge Rafael León-Carmona describe evidence suggesting that coffee is one of the richest sources of healthful antioxidants in the average person’s diet. Some of the newest research points to caffeine (also present in tea, cocoa, and other foods) as the source of powerful antioxidant effects that may help protect people from Alzheimer’s and other diseases“.

Barley bread – first try

straight-dough process made with

90 parts whole-grain stone-milled STREAKER hull-less barley flour;

10 parts dry wheat gluten;

100 parts water

1.5 parts instant yeast

2 parts salt

1.5 part malted barley flour

mix till elastic

1 hour bulk fermentation

divide 650 g & shape

1hour final proof

bake 200 deg C [400 deg F] 35 minutes

Physical and Sensory Properties of All-Barley and All-Oat Breads with Additional Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose (HPMC) β-Glucan. Yookyung Kim, Wallace H Yokoyama. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2011 59 (2), 741-746

One of the short chain fatty acids produced in lower bowel microbial fermentation. Butyric acid production in the human lower gut is promoted by the ingestion of resistant starch [RS]: that is, starch that is resistant to digestion in the preceding elements of the digestive tract via either acidic or enzymatic hydrolysis. There are different types of RS:

RS1 is starch physically occluded [hidden] by other plant anatomical structures, e.g. when consuming unmilled whole grains;

RS2 is raw granular starch of poor digestibility often with B-type amylopectin crystal structures [potato & banana starches], RS2 starch becomes digestible on cooking after gelatinization;

RS3 is most commonly based on normal, or preferably high-amylose, starch sources. The need for amylose in RS3 is the enhanced capability of amylose to quickly and strongly re-crystallize (retrograde) on cooling of a cooked starch matrix. The strong tendency of amylose to re-crystallize and the ability to grow and make the amylose crystallites more perfect during repeated heating and cooling cycles is exploited in the food industry in order to create sources of RS3 for addition to foods

Back to butyric: the higher levels of butyric acid that arise from the RS fermentation (compared to the higher amount of propionic acid fermented from non-starch fiber sources) are believed to be the genesis of the protective effects of RS against colo-rectal cancers. Butyric acid is believed to act as a cell growth regulator for the cells in the bowel epithelium, but also contributes to other more general factors that improve bowel function such as lowered fecal pH. RS appears to be fermented in the distal (descending) colon, as opposed to non-starch fibers that are fermented in the ascending and transverse colons, it extends these beneficial attributes further along the digestive tract.

From Eurkalert

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/uon-tqf020411.php

Great discussion of the bread-making process by award winning, erudite, and articulate baker Craig Ponsford. Craig is a past chairman of the board of  the Bread Bakers Guild of America and won the French and Specialty Breads category in the 1996 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie in France, the win helping to energize the artisan bread movement in the USA. Craig is incredibly generous of spirit as I have luckily come to know over the last year.

[Tom McMahon was the founder of the BBGA]

CRAIG’S “OBSESSIVES” VIDEO at Chow: a beautifully straight-forward exposé of the craft

Craig just opened a new place in San Rafael CA. PONSFORD’S PLACE. It’s worth visiting the website, but if you’re in the area visit the bakery.

You can also see Criag in action at http://communitygrains.com/using.html making a whole-wheat ciabatta [formulation here].

On the theme of community grains keep your eyes out for the Kneading Conference West in the state of Washington September 2011, where if plans go right I will be presenting on formulating barley flour into hand-crafted breads. This is a new extension of the well regarded Kneading Conference in Maine. The barely work is part of our push to reintroduce barley as a mainstream food. The major partner in this is our barley breeding program led by Pat Hayes.

Other proponents of barley as food can be found at…

http://www.barleyfoods.org/

and

http://www.canadianfoodbarley.ca/CFB%20website_english/index.htm

Both sites have info and recipes to help make barley a part of your day.

Why would you. Well apart from great taste it’s good for you.

WHAT BARLEY FOODS CAN DO FOR YOU

Interesting supplementary reading for my Food Chem Winter 2011 class.

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v4/n10/full/nmat1496.html

AND

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v3/n9/full/nmat1207.html

-OSU students: you  should be able to see the full text versions [html and pdf] if you are logged in to the OSU system.