Studies on fortification of wheat flour with defatted rice bran for chapati making.

An investigation was undertaken to explore the possibility of utilizing defatted rice bran (DRB) for making chapati. DRB was ground in hammer mill, sieved for different particle size i.e. 0.336 mm (large), 0.234 mm (medium) and 0.157 mm (fine), blended with wheat flour in the proportion of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25% and blends were evaluated for dough and chapati making quality. Extensibility of dough and chapati decreased (19.9 ± 0.08 to 14.3 ± 0.08 mm, 11.2 ± 0.05 to 6.3 ± 0.04 mm, respectively) while peak load to rupture of chapati increased (3.1 ± 0.04 to 3.6 ± 0.05 N) at 25% replacement of flour with fine DRB. Water absorption capacity of flour increased from 73 ± 0.4% to 74.6 ± 0.4% with 25% of large DRB, while the increase was up to 78.4 ± 0.3 and 80.6 ± 0.3% in case of medium and fine DRB. Overall acceptability score of chapati was also significantly (p ≤ 0.05) decreased (8.4 ± 0.2 to 6.8 ± 0.2) with 20% of large DRB, whereas it was 7.0 ± 0.1 and 7.6 ± 0.1 for medium and fine DRB at the same proportion. The chapati prepared from the wheat flour containing 20% fine DRB was rated acceptable and also had significantly (p ≤ 0.05) higher ash (2.1 ± 0.05) and total dietary fiber (4.3 ± 0.10%) content than control chapati.