Refrigerated dough syruping in relation to the arabinoxylan population

Refrigerated doughs develop syruping upon prolonged storage. To assess the role of arabinoxylans (AX), in this phenomenon, the evolution of the AX population and syruping in refrigerated doughs during storage were studied. When doughs were kept at 6 degrees C for up to 34 days of storage, dough syruping increased from 0% (fresh dough) to 22% of dough weight, reaching a plateau after 16 days of storage. High-performance size exclusion chromatography and gas-liquid chromatography showed hydrolysis of water-unextractable AX in the refrigerated dough, resulting in increased levels of solubilized AX in the first 2 days of storage. Longer storage resulted in further degradation of solubilized and water-extractable AX. Increased syruping was accompanied by a decrease in farinograph dough consistency. The results support the hypothesis that loss of water-holding capacity due to degradation of AX by endogenous xylanases is responsible for dough syruping.