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Science Forum Index » Chemistry Forum » Is toast burnt bread??...
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 Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:07 am |
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Hello
I'm in the middle of a dispute with my son..
I would like to know whether you must "burn bread to make toast". I
know that toasting bread involves the Maillard reaction, so I was
wondering whether the Maillard reaction is a type of burning or not?
Can you call toast 'burnt' bread?
Thanks!
Tony |
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| Bill Penrose... |
| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:50 am |
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On May 8, 12:07 pm, tony.bast... at (no spam) gmail.com wrote:
Quote: Hello
I'm in the middle of a dispute with my son..
I would like to know whether you must "burn bread to make toast". I
know that toasting bread involves the Maillard reaction, so I was
wondering whether the Maillard reaction is a type of burning or not?
Can you call toast 'burnt' bread?
Not a simple question. Burnt is an inexact term.
'Pyrolyzed bread' might work, but that implies that the toasting is
done in an inert atmosphere. 'Partial thermal decomposition' might
work.
Dangerous Bill |
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| David Bostwick... |
| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 3:56 pm |
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In article <ca229590-9a2b-43f3-a3cd-5bfb11a86b9a at (no spam) c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, tony.bastick at (no spam) gmail.com wrote:
Quote: Hello
I'm in the middle of a dispute with my son..
I would like to know whether you must "burn bread to make toast".
That depends on how dark you like it. For some people I know, unless it's
black, it's not toast. Other people like it a little past warm, with just
enough crust so that the knife won't break it when spreading butter or jam.
I know that's not a chemical answer, but not all quations are best answered
by an answer involving chemistry. |
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| Mark Thorson... |
| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 4:30 pm |
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David Bostwick wrote:
Quote:
In article <ca229590-9a2b-43f3-a3cd-5bfb11a86b9a at (no spam) c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, tony.bastick at (no spam) gmail.com wrote:
Hello
I'm in the middle of a dispute with my son..
I would like to know whether you must "burn bread to make toast".
That depends on how dark you like it. For some people I know, unless it's
black, it's not toast. Other people like it a little past warm, with just
enough crust so that the knife won't break it when spreading butter or jam.
I know that's not a chemical answer, but not all quations are best answered
by an answer involving chemistry.
This suggests an experiment, as much to explore the
concept of "burnt" as to explore any physical
phenomenon.
Here's my suggestion: make about 10 pieces of toast,
using the same loaf of bread and toaster, in a spectrum
from "little past warm" to having at least some solid
black areas.
If it's a little past warm, but not browned at all,
that's surely not burnt, right?
If it's got a black, carbonized patch on it, that's
burnt, right?
So where on the toast spectrum does burning begin?
Note that three phenomena are involved: drying
which crisps the bread without discoloration,
the Malliard reaction browning, and actual
carbonization.
C'mon, c'mon, what's the right answer? Is toast-3
burnt? Is toast-4 burnt? Or does burning not
occur until toast-7 or toast-8? Or toast-10?
Pretend that there's a right answer and you know
what it is, and you're trying to get him to
figure it out and say it.
See how long it takes for him to figure out that
you're just BSing him.
If you want to be extra scientifical, you'll
time each toasting very accurately and record
the times on paper (graph paper, even if you
don't draw a graph on the paper). And you'll
run a dummy (non-data) slice before the data
slices to warm up the equipment to operating
temperature. Otherwise, the first slice will
be biased by the warm-up time of the toaster. |
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