Modern cereal processing strategies increasingly shift towards diversification, suitability, and nutritional balance modulation, thereby alleviating cardiovascular and chronic diseases induced by imbalances in the dietary composition of fine flours (Lin et al., 2022). Mixing flour, as an ancient, conventional but valid measure, intensifies the nutritional balance of the flour and can also impart unique functional properties and flavors to it; the key to mixing flour is the grain source and the adequacy in its processing suitability (Martinez et al., 2020; Spina et al., 2023).

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) is cultivated widely around the world, and its drought- and cold-resistant features provide an advantage over wheat and maize at high altitudes (Akin et al., 2022); moreover, its seeds are rich in phenols, tannins, anthocyanosides, and other naturally active substances, which are known for beneficial properties include cholesterol-lowering, anti-inflammatory/oxidant, and the prevention of obesity and geriatric diseases (Malherbe et al., 2023). However, despite its many advantages, sorghum remains underutilized for food areas and is primarily used for livestock feeding and brewing (Szambelan et al., 2022). Sorghum is traditionally used in the Horn of Africa in Somalia to prepare an appreciated flatbread named laxoox or canjeero. This kind of bread, despite being fermented, is flat because of the absence of gluten. It is often prepared using pure sorghum flour (Pasqualone et al., 2023; Wolgamuth et al., 2022). Although research has been reported for sorghum-based flours, the addition level needs to be lowered to obtain consumer-acceptable flour-based products (typically 15–20%), which is detrimental to the in-depth utilization of sorghum flour and reduces the nutritional value of its product (Hussnain et al., 2022). Sharanagat et al. (2024) increased the proportion of sorghum added to wheat through germination, which increased the proportion of sorghum to 20% while maintaining quality. Moreover, sorghum contains only alcohol-soluble proteins, and higher addition ratios not only reduce protein digestibility but also the higher addition ratio may negatively affect the dough's rheological properties, thus detrimental to flour-based products' quality, which is a critical issue that needs to be solved urgently (Gunawan et al., 2022). Therefore, suitable pretreatment is required to enhance the suitability of sorghum flour for food processing.

E-beam irradiation (EBI), an emerging non-thermal processing technology, is widely used in modifying and preserving agro-food products (Wei et al., 2022). Recent studies indicate that EBI can improve the processing suitability of flour by inducing structure-properties changes that enhance starch viscosity, thermal properties, solubility, and nutrient content (Huang et al., 2022). Further studies revealed that EBI induced starch molecule degradation, chain depolymerization, order structure disruption, and crystal structure imperfections in flour (Sanaei Nasab et al., 2023). This alteration improved starch hydration and digestibility properties, enhancing its application value (Liang et al., 2022). This will be favorable to the starch enzymatic fermentation reaction to a certain extent. However, although EBI modification provides multiple advantages, a lack of investigation exists of mixed doughs from irradiated sorghum flour.

Notably, mixed flours potentially improve the nutritional inadequacies of single components (Johnson et al., 2021). Also, EBI technology mitigates quality deterioration induced by adding miscellaneous grains by degrading the flour to produce small-molecule sugars and dextrins for yeast growth and dough development (Xue et al., 2017). Hence, it was hypothesized that mixing irradiated sorghum flour with wheat flour may increase the addition ratio and confer a more suitable processability to the dough. This study aimed to investigate the effects of EBI-irradiated sorghum flour on the relevant physicochemical properties of the mixed flour at different irradiation doses. To identify the optimum irradiation dose that can improve the quality of the flour products and maintain a high proportion of sorghum flour added during the processing of the flour products to guide the production. Furthermore, a model dough was prepared to reflect the modulation of dough properties and structure by adding the mixed flour, and the suitability of the mixed flour for processing was assessed through the preparation of bread. The results obtained are expected to provide the optimal irradiation dose for mixed flour dough fermentation and suggest prospects for applying EBI in miscellaneous grain dough processing.