The invention relates to a method of producing a natural leavened dough for the preparation of bread and pastries by using a pure or mixed culture of bread-leavening bacteria which form lactic and acetic acid, which culture is added to a cereal mash, lactic and acetic acid being formed in the cereal mash.
Baking with a natural leavening agent imparts to the baked product an excellent taste and very pleasant aroma. Thus, the natural bacteriological leavening of dough must be regarded as extremely advantageous particularly since such a baking method, using no chemical agents at all, provides a natural and very hygienic product. Recent scientific medical publications have clearly shown that the highest hygienic value is placed upon natural leavening of dough particularly when whole-meal rye groats are used.
However, the production of a naturally leavened dough is uneconomical. The main reason for this is that large quantities of leavened dough are required in order to impart to the product the taste and aroma of the naturally leavened baked material. Furthermore, the production of the leavened dough as a shortening material, two-stage material or three-stage material is extremely time-consuming.
Within the art, efforts have been made to rationalize the production of leavened dough by means of known methods such as the rotating ring method, which can be regarded as a discontinuous-continuous method, and the silo method. Such production methods however require costly apparatus which, in addition, is prone to breakdown.
The main disadvantage in the production of a naturally leavened baked material is that the amount of previously leavened material in the dough is disproportionately great. It has also been established that a further considerable disadvantage in the production of naturally leavened baked material is that the naturally leavened initial dough has to be produced over a lengthy period of time involving many different stages, the duration of which and the temperature used therein require to be accurately controlled.
However, the greatest disadvantage is that a naturally leavened initial dough, produced by the prior art methods, must be used up immediately following the leavening stages. This means that for each charge of dough, the quantity of initial dough required therefor has to be produced and processed in a precise manner suited to the amount of each charge. It will be readily seen that this sets extremely narrow limits upon the time available, particularly in the industrial preparation of pastries, and this is also the reason why naturally leavened baked material is hardly ever produced on an industrial scale.
It has also to be emphasised that methods of producing naturally leavened baked material have not been adopted because the individual leavening stages for forming leavened dough bacteria have been carried out on the entire quantities of the dough proper or on certain quantities thereof, and not on an initial dough. In carrying out the leavening stage on the entire quantity of dough necessary for the baking operation a considerably greater amount of time is required to achieve the required degree of leavening in all of the dough.
Furthermore, pastries produced industrially by the prior art methods exhibit unduly limited keeping qualities. Expensive preservatives therefore have to be added to the dough. Such preservatives adversely affect the taste of the product considerably but are necessary to ensure that the product will keep for a reasonable minimum period of time.