Understanding the role of oat ß-glucan in oat-based dough systems

B-glucan is one of the components that differentiate oats from other cereals and that contribute to the health-related value of oats. However, so far oats cannot easily be applied in bread-like products without loss of product quality. Here we have studied how the content and viscosity of oat ß-glucan affect the technological properties of oat dough in both a gluten-free and a gluten-containing system. In both systems, increasing the ß-glucan concentration resulted in an increase of dough stiffness and in a reduction of dough extensibility. ¿-glucan negatively impacted the elastic properties that additional wheat gluten conferred to oat dough. This effect was smaller for medium-viscosity ß-glucan than for high-viscosity ß-glucan. Interestingly, dough made from low ß-glucan flour (