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Fermentation Atlas

Cereals and bread from Portugal

Broa de milho (Portuguese maize sourdough bread)broa

Sieved wholemeal maize flour, at least half the flour, is scalded with boiling salted water, then mixed with rye and or wheat flour and a piece of leavened dough kept from the last baking. After a short rise the dough is shaped into round loaves and baked very hot into a slightly sour maize bread. Made in 6 steps over 26 h. The longest step, keep the leavened dough (sourdough), takes 24 h (Rocha J.M 2016). Salt is 1.8 % (Cunha L.M 2019). Yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida pelliculosa and Lactic acid bacteria, mainly Leuconostoc and Lactobacillus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 hMeasured[rocha2016]Keep the leavened dough (sourdough)
Temperature27 °CMeasured[cunha2019]Cool, add the leaven and knead
Salt1.8 %Measured[cunha2019]Scald the maize flour
AciditypH 4.1Measured[rocha2016]Keep the leavened dough (sourdough)
Fully documentedCereals and bread26 hMore cereals and breadMore from SpainMore from Portugal

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceBase formula per kg of flour from a 2019 study, baked at a Portuguese bakery. The traditional process mixes maize flour, wheat and or rye flour, hot water, yeast, salt and leavened dough from a previous bread, with no fixed amounts.
700 g per kg of flourMaize flour · Traditional broa uses 50–100 % maize; traditional open-pollinated varieties are preferred[cunha2019][bento2021]
200 g per kg of flourRye flour[cunha2019]
100 g per kg of flourWheat flour[cunha2019]
100 % (vol/wt of flour)Water · 80 % boiling and salted for the scald, the other 20 % added with the leaven[cunha2019]
100 g per kg of flourSourdough (leavened dough from a previous broa)[cunha2019]
17.6 g per kg of flourSalt[cunha2019]
28 g per kg of flourSugar[cunha2019]
10 g per kg of flourDry yeast · Used with the sourdough in this bakery recipe[cunha2019]
Starterbackslop (leavened dough kept from the previous broa)

Total time across the recorded steps: 26 h

Start
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StarchSugarAlcoholCO₂pH 4.1shapes, not to countYeastsLactobacilliBacillus become

What changes: A piece of old dough sours over a day as yeasts and lactic bacteria take over

Step 1 of 6
Keep the leavened dough (sourdough)
Time
24 h
Measured
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 4.1
Measured
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Lactobacilli
Bacillus become
Candida pelliculosa
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: sour leavened dough for the next bake.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

yeasts, lactobacilli and Bacillus become dominant; lactic cocci are a large share by 24 h

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Broa is a sourdough bread in which maize, not wheat or rye, is most of the flour. Because maize has no gluten, the maize flour is scalded with boiling water first, and some rye or wheat is kept in the dough so it can rise.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Gluten-free broaMade with maize only, without rye or wheat. Accepted in some rural communities, though its texture is unusual and it is harder to make.
  • Legume-fortified broaPea, chickpea, faba bean or lentil flour added to raise protein by about 21 % on average, without changing how much tasters liked it.

Safety

Fermentation lowers the numbers of Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae and staphylococci in broa sourdough, and the sourdough falls to about pH 4.1 within a day. The loaf is baked through at a high oven heat.

Hazards the sources name: Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae and staphylococci in flours and fresh dough; their numbers fall during fermentation.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Maize reached Portugal soon after 1492, first in the Coimbra region, and spread fast along the centre and north coast. There broa, made at home by women about once a week, almost completely replaced wheat and rye bread, and maize became a currency for paying rents. The broa recipe follows that of a millet bread (borona) named in 12th-century Portuguese documents. On the coast of northwestern Spain maize spread after 1630 and was likewise used mainly for bread.

  1. [rocha1999] Rocha J.M., Malcata F.X. 1999, On the microbiological profile of traditional Portuguese sourdough, Journal of Food Protection 62(12):1416–1429, doi:10.4315/0362-028X-62.12.1416 (abstract)paper
  2. [rocha2012] Rocha J.M., Malcata F.X. 2012, Microbiological profile of maize and rye flours, and sourdough used for the manufacture of traditional Portuguese bread, Food Microbiology 31:72–88, doi:10.1016/j.fm.2012.01.008 (abstract)paper
  3. [rocha2016] Rocha J.M., Malcata F.X. 2016, Microbial ecology dynamics in Portuguese broa sourdough, Journal of Food Quality 39:634–648, doi:10.1111/jfq.12244 (abstract)paper
  4. [cunha2019] Cunha L.M., Fonseca S.C., Lima R.C., Loureiro J., Pinto A.S., Vaz Patto M.C., Brites C. 2019, Consumer-driven improvement of maize bread formulations with legume fortification, Foods 8(7):235, doi:10.3390/foods8070235paper
  5. [bento2021] Bento-Silva A., Duarte N., Belo M., Mecha E., Carbas B., Brites C., Vaz Patto M.C., Bronze M.R. 2021, Shedding light on the volatile composition of broa, a traditional Portuguese maize bread, Biomolecules 11(10):1396, doi:10.3390/biom11101396paper
  6. [revilla2021] Revilla P., Alves M.L., Andelković V., Balconi C. et al. 2021, Traditional foods from maize (Zea mays L.) in Europe, Frontiers in Nutrition 8:683399, doi:10.3389/fnut.2021.683399paper