Comparison of Near‐Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy and Texture Analyzer for Measuring Wheat Bread Changes in Storage

Bread staling affects bread texture properties and is one of the most common problems in bread storage. Bread firmness, as measured in compression mode by a texture analyzer (TA) has been commonly used to measure bread staling. This study investigated the potential of visible and near‐infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) to detect bread changes during storage by comparing NIRS results with those obtained by TA. Twenty‐five loaves of commercial wheat white pan bread from one batch were studied over five days. NIRS and TA measurements were made on the same slice at approximately the same time. The experiment was repeated five times using the same kind of commercial samples from five different batches. NIRS measurements of slices, loaf averages, and daily averages were compared with TA measurements. NIRS spectra had a high correlation to TA firmness. NIRS measurements correlated better with the actual storage time and had smaller standard deviations than the TA measurements. The batch differences had less effect on NIRS measurements than on the TA measurements. The results indicate that NIRS could follow bread changes during storage more accurately than the TA. NIRS is probably based on both physical and chemical changes during bread staling, unlike the TA method that only measures bread firmness, which is only one aspect of the staling phenomenon.