The influence of a baker's yeast pre-inoculum on bread-dough leavening

In order to investigate the influence of a pre-inoculum on the fermentation performance of compressed baker's yeast used for bread-dough leavening, pre-inocula were made by adding compressed baker's yeast to a premix-sugar broth and cultivating it for 30, 60, 90 and 120 min. The pre-inocula were added separately to the dough and the gas production measured with the aid of a fermento-manometer. The pre-inoculum cultivated for 120 min presented the highest increase (43·6%) in maximum gas produced (P_max) after 90 min of dough fermentation. The possibility of reducing lag time during dough fermentation, by using a cost-effective pre-inoculum, was assessed and results showed a significant (P ≤ 0·05) increase in gas production which could be highly beneficial to the bread industry.