Chapter V: OF RIPENING DIFFERENT KINDS OF BEER.--The varieties of beer depend (7)

The silk should be boiled at the rate of 20 parts of soap per cent., and then alumed. The aluming need not be so strong as for the fine crimson. The silk is refreshed at the river, and passed through a bath more or less charged with Brazil juice, according to the shade to be given. When water free from earthy salts is employed, the colour is too red to imitate crimson; this quality is given it by passing the silk through a slight alkaline solution, or by adding a little alkali to the bath. It might, indeed, be washed in a hard water till it had taken the desired shade.

To make deeper false crimsons of a dark red, juice of logwood is put into the Brazil bath after the silk has been impregnated with it. A little alkali may be added, according to the shade that is wanted.

To imitate poppy or flame colour, an annotto ground is given to the silk, deeper even than when it is dyed with carthamus. It is washed, alumed, and dyed with juice of Brazil, to which a little soap water is usually added.

The colouring particles of Brazil wood are easily affected, and made yellow by the action of acids.

They thus become permanent colours. But what distinguishes them from madder and kermes, and approximates them to cochineal, is their reappearing in their natural colour, when they are thrown down in a state of combination with alumina, or with oxide of tin. These two combinations seem to be the fittest for rendering them durable. It is requisite, therefore, to inquire what circumstances are best calculated to promote the formation of these combinations, according to the nature of the stuff.

The astringent principle, likewise, seems to contribute to the permanence of the colouring matter of Brazil wood; but it deepens its hue, and can only be employed for light shades.

The colouring particles of Brazil wood are very sensible to the action of alkalies which give them a purple hue; and there are several processes in which the alkalies, either fixed or volatile, are used for forming violets and purples. But the colours obtained by these methods, which may be easily varied according to the purpose, are perishable, and possess but a transient bloom. The alkalies appear not to injure the colours derived from madder, but they accelerate the destruction of most other colours.

In England and Holland the dye-woods are reduced to powder by means of mills erected for the purpose.

The bright fugitive red, called fancy red, is given to cotton by Nicaragua, or peachwood, a cheap kind of Brazil wood.

The cotton being scoured and bleached, is boiled with sumach. It is then impregnated with a solution of tin (at 5° Baumé, according to Vitalis). It should now be washed slightly in a weak bath of the dyeing wood, and lastly, worked in a somewhat stale infusion of the peach or Brazil wood. When the temperature of this is lukewarm, the dye is said to take better. Sometimes two successive immersions in the bath are given. It is now wrung out, aired, washed in water, and dried.

M. Vitalis says, that his solution of tin is prepared with two ounces of tin and a pound of aqua regia made with two parts of nitric acid at 24° Baumé, and three parts of muriatic acid at 22°.

For a rose colour, the cotton is alumed as usual, and washed from the alum. It then gets the tin mordant, and is again washed. It is now turned through the dye-bath, an operation which is repeated if necessary.

For purple a little alum is added to the Brazil bath.

1. For amaranth, the cotton is strongly galled, dried, and washed.

2. It is passed through the black cask (tonneau noir), see BLACK DYE, till it has taken a strong grey shade.

3. It receives a bath of lime water.

4. Mordant of tin.

5. Dyeing in the Brazil wood bath.

6. The two last operations are repeated.

Dingler has endeavoured to separate the colouring matter of the different sorts of Brazil wood, so as to obtain the same tint from the coarser as from the best Pernambuco. His process consists in treating the wood with hot water or steam, in concentrating the decoction so as to obtain 14 or 15 pounds of it from 4 pounds of wood, allowing it to cool, and pouring into it two pounds of skim milk; agitating, then boiling for a few minutes, and filtering. The dun colouring matters are precipitated by the coagulation of the caseous substance. For dyeing, the decoctions must be diluted with water; for printing they must be concentrated, so that 4 pounds of wood shall furnish only 5 or 6 pounds of decoction, and the liquor may be thickened in the ordinary way. These decoctions may be employed immediately, as by this treatment they have acquired the same property as they otherwise could get only by being long kept. A slight fermentation is said to improve the colour of these decoctions; some ground wood is put into the decoction to favour this process.

As gelatine produces no precipitate with these decoctions, they consequently contain no tannin. Gall-nuts, however, sumach, the bark of birch or alder, render the colour of Brazil wood more durable, upon alumed linen and cotton goods, but the shade is a little darker.

In dyeing wool with Pernambuco, the temperature of the bath should never be above 150° Fahr., since higher heats impair the colour.

According to Dingler and Kurrer, bright and fast scarlet reds may be obtained upon wool, by preparing a decoction of 50 pounds of Brazil wood in three successive boils, and setting the decoction aside for 3 or 4 weeks in a cool place; 100 pounds of the wool are then alumed in a bath of 22 pounds of alum and 11 pounds of tartar, and afterwards rinsed in cold water. Meanwhile we fill two-thirds with water, a copper containing 30 pails, and heated to the temperature of 150° or 160° F. We pour in 3 pailfuls of the decoction, heat to the same point again, and introduce 30 pounds of wool, which does not take a scarlet, but rather a crimson tint. This being removed, 2 pails of decoction are put in, and 30 pounds of wool which becomes scarlet, but not so fine as at the third dip. If the dyer strengthens the colour a little at the first dip, a little more at the second, and adds at the third and fourth the quantity of decoction merely necessary, he will obtain an uniform scarlet tint. With 50 pounds of Pernambuco 1000 pounds of wool may be dyed scarlet in this way, and with the deposits another 100 may be dyed of a tile colour. An addition of weld renders the colour faster but less brilliant.

Karkutsch says the dye may be improved by adding some ox-gall to the bath.

In dyeing cotton the tannin and gallic acid are two necessary mordants, and the colour is particularly bright and durable, when the cloth has been prepared with the oily process of Turkey red.

It is said that stale urine heightens the colour of the Brazil dye when the ground wood is moistened with it.

The quantity of Brazil or Nicaragua wood imported into the United Kingdom in 1835, was 6,242 tons, whereof 1,811 were exported; of Brazilietto 230 tons. The duty upon the first article is 5_s._ per ton.

BREAD (_Pain_, Fr.; _Brod_, Germ.) is the spongy mass produced by baking the leavened or fermented dough of wheat or rye flour, at a proper heat. It is the principal food of highly civilized nations. The skilful preparation of this indispensable article constitutes the art of the Baker. Dough baked without being fermented constitutes cakes or biscuits; but not bread strictly speaking.

Pliny informs us, that barley was the only species of corn at first used for food; and even after the method of reducing it to flour had been discovered, it was long before mankind learned the art of converting it into cakes.

Ovens were first invented in the East. Their construction was understood by the Jews, the Greeks, and the Asiatics, among whom baking was practised as a distinct profession. In this art, the Cappadocians, Lydians, and Phœnicians, are said to have particularly excelled. It was not till about 580 years after the foundation of Rome, that these artisans passed into Europe. The Roman armies, on their return from Macedonia, brought Grecian bakers with them into Italy. As these bakers had handmills beside their ovens, they still continued to be called _pistores_, from the ancient practice of bruising the corn in a mortar; and their bakehouses were denominated _pistoriæ_. In the time of Augustus there were no fewer than 329 public bakehouses in Rome; almost the whole of which were in the hands of Greeks, who long continued the only persons in that city acquainted with the art of baking good bread.

In nothing, perhaps, is the wise and cautious policy of the Roman government more remarkably displayed, than in the regulations which it imposed on the bakers within the city. To the foreign bakers who came to Rome with the army from Macedonia, a number of freedmen were associated, forming together an incorporation from which neither they nor their children could separate, and of which even those who married the daughters of bakers were obliged to become members. To this incorporation were entrusted all the mills, utensils, slaves, animals, every thing, in short, which belonged to the former bakehouses. In addition to these, they received considerable portions of land; and nothing was withheld, which could assist them in pursuing, to the best advantage, their highly prized labours and trade. The practice of condemning criminals and slaves, for petty offences, to work in the bakehouse, was still continued; and even the judges of Africa were bound to send thither, every five years, such persons as had incurred that kind of chastisement. The bakehouses were distributed throughout the fourteen divisions of the city, and no baker could pass from one into another without special permission. The public granaries were committed to their care; they paid nothing for the corn employed in baking bread that was to be given in largess to the citizens; and the price of the rest was regulated by the magistrates. No corn was given out of these granaries except for the bakehouses, and for the private use of the prince. The bakers had besides private granaries, in which they deposited the grain, which they had taken from the public granaries for immediate use; and if any of them happened to be convicted of having diverted any portion of the grain to another purpose, he was condemned to a ruinous fine of five hundred pounds weight of gold.

Most of these regulations were soon introduced among the Gauls; but it was long before they found their way into the more northern countries of Europe. Borrichius informs us that in Sweden and Norway, the only bread known, so late as the middle of the 16th century, was unleavened cakes kneaded by the women. At what period in our own history the art of baking became a separate profession, we have not been able to ascertain; but this profession is now common to all the countries in Europe, and the process of baking is also nearly the same.

The French, who particularly excel in the art of baking, have a great many different kinds of bread. Their _pain bis_, or brown bread, is the coarsest kind of all, and is made of coarse groats mixed with a portion of white flour. The _pain bis blanc_, is a kind of bread between white and brown, made of white flour and fine groats. The _pain blanc_, or white bread, is made of white flour, shaken through a sieve after the finest flour has been separated. The _pain mollet_, or soft bread, is made of the purest flour without any admixture. The _pain chaland_, or customers’ bread, is a very white kind of bread, made of pounded paste. _Pain chapelé_, is a small kind of bread, with a well-beaten and very light paste, seasoned with butter or milk. This name is also given to a small bread, from which the thickest crust has been removed by a knife. _Pain cornu_, is a name given by the French bakers to a kind of bread made with four corners, and sometimes more. Of all the kinds of small bread, this has the strongest and firmest paste. _Pain à la reine_, queen’s bread, _pain à la Sigovie_, _pain chapelé_, and _pain cornu_, are all small kinds of bread, differing only in the lightness or thickness of the paste. _Pain gruau_ is a small very white bread made now in Paris, from the flour separated after a slight grinding from the best wheat. Such flour is in hard granular particles.

In this country we have fewer varieties of bread, and these differ chiefly in their degrees of purity. Our white or fine bread is made of the purest flour; our wheaten bread, of flour with a mixture of the finest bran; and our household bread, of the whole substance of the grain without the separation either of the fine flour or coarse bran. We have also symnel bread, manchet or roll bread, and French bread, which are all made of the purest flour from the finest wheat; the roll bread being improved by the addition of milk, and the French bread by the addition of eggs and butter. To these may be added gingerbread, a cake made of flour, with almonds, liquorice, aniseed, rose-water, and sugar or treacle; and mastlin bread, made of wheat and rye, or sometimes of wheat and barley. We have various kinds of small bread, having various names, according to their various forms. They are, in general, extremely light, and are sweetened with sugar, currants, and other palatable ingredients. In Scotland there is a cake called _short bread_, made from a pretty thick dough, enriched with butter, sweetened with sugar, and seasoned with orange peel, or other kinds of spices.

The process of making bread is nearly the same in all the countries of modern Europe; though the materials of which it as composed vary with the farinaceous productions of different climates and soils. The flour of wheat is most generally employed for this purpose, wherever that vegetable can be reared. This flour is composed of a small portion of mucilaginous saccharine matter, soluble in cold water, from which it may be separated by evaporation; of a great quantity of starch, which is scarcely soluble in cold water, but capable of combining with that fluid by means of heat; and an adhesive gray substance called gluten, insoluble in water, ardent spirit, oil, or ether, and resembling an animal substance in many of its properties. Flour kneaded with water, forms a tough rather indigestible paste containing all the constituent parts which we have enumerated. Heat produces a considerable change on the glutinous part of this compound, and renders it more easy of mastication and digestion. Still, however, it continues heavy and tough, compared with bread which is raised by leaven or yeast. Leaven is nothing more than a piece of dough, kept in a warm place till it undergoes a process of fermentation; swelling, becoming spongy, or full of air bubbles, at length disengaging an acidulo-spirituous vapour, and contracting a sour taste. When this leaven is mingled in proper proportions with fresh-made dough, it makes it rise more readily and effectually than it would do alone, and gives it at the same time a greater degree of firmness. Upon the quality of the leaven employed, the quality of the bread materially depends.

The principal improvement which has been made on bread in modern times, is the substitution of yeast or barm in place of common leaven. This yeast is the viscid froth that rises to the surface of beer, in the first stage of its fermentation. When mixed with the dough, it makes it rise much more speedily and effectually than ordinary leaven, and the bread is of course much lighter, and freer from that sour and disagreeable taste which may often be perceived in bread raised with leaven, either because too much is mingled with the paste, or because it has been allowed to advance too far in the process of fermentation.

Bread properly raised and baked, differs materially from unleavened cakes, not only in being less compact and heavy, and more agreeable to the taste, but in losing its tenacious and glutinous qualities, and thus becoming more salutary and digestible.

We possess several analyses of wheat flour. Ordinary wheat (_triticum hybernum mixed with triticum turgidum_) contains, according to the analyses made by Vauquelin of several species of wheat flour, the following substances:--

+--------------------------+------+-------+-------+------+
| | | | | |
| Species of Wheat. |Water.|Gluten.|Starch.|Sugar.|
| | | | | |
+--------------------------+------+-------+-------+------+
|French wheat flour | 10·0 | 10·96 | 71·49 | 4·72 |
|Hard wheat of Odessa flour| 12·0 | 14·55 | 56·50 | 8·48 |
|Soft wheat of Odessa flour| 10·0 | 12·00 | 62·00 | 7·56 |
|Same sort of flour | 8·0 | 12·10 | 70·84 | 4·90 |
|Same sort of flour | 12·0 | 7·30 | 72·00 | 5·42 |
|Wheat of the French bakers| 10·0 | 10·20 | 72·80 | 4·20 |
|Flour of the Paris hos- | 8·0 | 10·30 | 71·20 | 4·80 |
|pitals (2d quality) | | | | |
|Ditto (3d quality) | 12·0 | 9·02 | 67·78 | 4·80 |
+--------------------------+------+-------+-------+------+

+--------------------------+------+-----+------+------+
| | | | |Water |
| Species of Wheat. | Gum. |Bran.|Total.| of |
| | | | |dough.|
+--------------------------+------+-----+------+------+
|French wheat flour | 3·32 | - |100·49| 50·3 |
|Hard wheat of Odessa flour| 4·90 | 2·3 | 98·73| 51·2 |
|Soft wheat of Odessa flour| 5·80 | 1·2 | 98·42| 54·8 |
|Same sort of flour | 4·60 | - |100·41| 37·4 |
|Same sort of flour | 3·30 | - |100·02| 37·2 |
|Wheat of the French bakers| 2·80 | - |100·00| 40·6 |
|Flour of the Paris hos- | 3·60 | - | 97·90| 37·8 |
|pitals (2d quality) | | | | |
|Ditto (3d quality) | 4·60 | 2·0 |100·21| 37·8 |
+--------------------------+------+-----+------+------+

The following table of analyses merits also a place here.

+------------------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+-----+-----+
|Species of Flour. |Water.|Gluten.|Starch.|Sugar.|Gummi- |Albu-|Bran.|
| | | | | |gluten.|men. | |
+------------------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+-----+-----+
|Flour of the | 1 | 22· | 74· | 5·50| 1· | 1·50| |
|triticum spelta | | | | | | | |
|Ditto triticum | 1 | 24· | 68· | 5·0 | 1· | 1·50| |
|hybernum | | | | | | | |
|Ditto common wheat| - | 12·5 | 74·5 | 12· | 2· | | |
|Ditto wheat and | 6 | 9·80 | 75·50 | 4·22| 3·28 | - | 1·2 |
|rye mixed | | | | | | | |
|(mastlin) | | | | | | | |
+------------------+------+-------+-------+------+-------+-----+-----+

The first two of the above analyses were made by Vogel, the third by Proust, and the fourth by Vauquelin.

Analyses of the flour of some other corns.

+---------+-------+-----+----+-----+---------+-------------+-----+
|Species |Starch.|Muci-|Glu-|Albu-| Sugar. | Husk. |Hor- |
|of Flour.| |lage.|ten.|men. | | |dein.|
+---------+-------+-----+----+-----+---------+-------------+-----+
| | | | | | |Of a fat oil,| |
|White | 59·00 | 2·5 | - |4·30 | 8·25 | 2 | |
|oatmeal | | | | |Of resin,| | |
|Barley | 32·00 | 9· | 3· | - | 2 | - | 55 |
|meal | | | | | | | |
+---------+-------+-----+----+-----+---------+-------------+-----+

The first analysis is by Vogel, the second by Proust.

It deserves to be remarked, that the flour of Odessa contains a much greater quantity of sugar than the French flour. The substance indicated in the preceding table by the name of gluten, is the gluten of Beccaria, that is to say, a mixture of gluten and vegetable albumen. The gum of wheat is not quite identical with ordinary gum. It is a brown azotised substance, which, when treated by nitric acid, affords no mucic acid, but oxalic acid and the bitter principle of Welter. It contains besides superphosphate of lime.

The last column of the first table exhibits the quantity of water necessary to convert the flour into dough of the ordinary consistence, and it is usually proportional to the quantity of gluten. The hard wheat of Odessa forms an exception in this respect; the reason of the difference being that the starch contained in this flour is not as in ordinary flour in a fine powder, but in small transparent grains, which resemble pounded gum, and absorb less water than pulverulent starch.

The _triticum monococcon_, according to Zenneck, contains in its unsifted flour, 16·334 of gluten and vegetable albumen; 64·838 of starch; 11·347 of gum, sugar, and extractive; 7·481 of husks. The sifted flour affords 15·536 of gluten and vegetable albumen; 76·459 of starch; 7·198 of sugar, gum, and extractive; 0·807 of husky matter. It is difficult to conceive how such great quantities of gluten, albumen, and extractive matter, could disappear in the sifting. The triticum spelta contains in 100 parts of the finest flour, 22·5 of a soft and humid gluten, mixed with vegetable albumen; 74 of starch, and 5·5 of sugar. Here we have an excess of 2 parts in the 100.

Wheat furnishes very little ashes by incineration, not more than 0·15 per cent. of the weight; containing superphosphates of soda, lime, and magnesia.

The object of baking is to combine the gluten and starch of the flour into a homogeneous substance, and to excite such a vinous fermentative action, by means of its saccharine matter, as shall disengage abundance of carbonic acid gas in it for making an agreeable, soft, succulent, spongy, and easily digestible bread. The two evils to be avoided in baking are, hardness on the one hand, and pastiness on the other. Well-made bread is a chemical compound, in which the gluten and starch cannot be recognized or separated, as before, by a stream of water. When flour is kneaded into a dough, and spread into a cake, this cake, when baked, will be horny if it be thin, or if thick, will be tough and clammy; whence we see the value of that fermentative process, which generates thousands of little cells in the mass or crumb, each of them dry, yet tender and succulent, through the intimate combination of the moisture. By this constitution it becomes easily soluble in the juices of the stomach, or in other words, light of digestion. It is moreover much less liable to turn sour than cakes made from unfermented dough.

Rye, which also forms a true spongy bread, though inferior to that of wheat, consists of similar ingredients; namely, 61·07 of starch; 9·48 of gluten; 3·28 of vegetable albumen; 3·28 of uncrystallizable sugar; 11·09 of gum; 6·38 of vegetable fibre; the loss upon the 100 parts amounted to 5·62, including an acid whose nature the analyst, M. Einhof, did not determine. Rye flour contains also several salts, principally the phosphates of lime and magnesia. This kind of grain forms a dark-coloured bread reckoned very wholesome; comparatively little used in this country, but very much in France, Germany, and Belgium.

Dough fermented with the aid either of leaven or yeast, contains little or none of the saccharine matter of the flour, but in its stead a certain portion, nearly half its weight, of spirit, which imparts to it a vinous smell, and is volatilized in the oven; whence it might be condensed into a crude weak alcohol, on the plan of Mr. Hick’s patent, were it worth while. But the increased complexity of the baking apparatus, will probably prove an effectual obstacle to the commercial success of this project, upon which already upwards of 20,000_l._ sterling have been squandered.

That the sugar of the flour is the true element of the fermentation preposterously called panary, which dough undergoes, and that the starch and gluten have nothing to do with it, may be proved by decisive experiments. The vinous fermentation continues till the whole sugar is decomposed, and no longer; when if the process be not checked by the heat of baking, the acetous fermentation will supervene. Therefore if a little sugar be added to a flour which contains little or none, its dough will become susceptible of fermenting, with extrication of gas, so as to make spongy succulent bread. But since this sponginess is produced solely by the extrication of gas, and its expansion in the heat of the oven, any substance capable of emitting gas, or of being converted into it under these circumstances, will answer the same purpose. Were a solution of bicarbonate of ammonia obtained by exposing the common sesqui-carbonate in powder for a day to the air, incorporated with the dough, in the subsequent firing it will be converted into vapour, and in its extrication render the bread very porous. Nay, if water highly impregnated with carbonic acid gas be used for kneading the dough, the resulting bread will be somewhat spongy. Could a light article of food be prepared in this way, then as the sugar would remain undecomposed, the bread would be so much the sweeter, and the more nourishing. How far a change propitious to digestion takes place in the constitution of the starch and gluten, during the fermentative action of the dough, has not been hitherto ascertained by precise experiments. Medical practitioners, who derive an enormous revenue from dyspepsia, should take some pains to investigate this subject.

Dr. Colquhoun, in his able essay upon the art of making bread, has shown that its texture when prepared by a sudden formation and disengagement of elastic fluid generated within the oven, differs remarkably from that of a loaf which has been made after the preparatory fermentation with yeast. Bread which has been raised with the common carbonate of ammonia as used by the pastry-cooks, is porous no doubt, but not spongy with vesicular spaces, like that made in the ordinary way. The former kind of bread never presents that air-cell stratification which is the boast of the Parisian baker, but which is almost unknown in London. I have found it moreover very difficult to expel by the oven the last portion of the ammonia, which gives both a tinge and a taste to the bread. I believe, however, that the bicarbonate would be nearly free from this objection, which operates so much against the sesqui-carbonate of the shops.

In opposition to Mr. Edlin’s account of the excellent quality of bread made by impregnating dough with carbonic acid gas[10], Dr. Colquhoun adduces Vogel’s experiments, which show that such dough, when baked, after having been kept in a warm situation during the usual time, afforded nothing better than a hard cake, which had no resemblance to common bread. Vogel further states, as illustrative of the general necessity of providing a sufficient supply of disengaged elastic fluid within the dough, before baking it at all, that when he made various attempts to form a well-raised vesicular loaf, within the oven, by mixing flour with carbonate of magnesia, or with zinc filings, and then kneading it into a paste by means of water, acidulated with sulphuric acid, he always met with complete failure and disappointment. Dr. Colquhoun performed a series of well-devised experiments on this subject, which fully confirmed Vogel’s results, and prove that a proper spongy bread cannot be made by the agency of either carbonic acid water, or of mixtures of sesqui-carbonate of soda, and tartaric acid. The bread proved doughy and dense in every case, though less so with the latter mixture than the former. No loaf bread can, indeed, be well made by any of these two extemporaneous systems, because they are inconsistent with the thorough kneading of the dough. It is this process which renders dough at once elastic enough to expand when carbonic acid gas is generated within it, and cohesive enough to confine the gas when it is generated. The whole gas of the loaf is disengaged in its interior by a continuous fermentation, after all the processes of kneading have been finished; for the loaf, after being kneaded, weighed out, and shaped, is set aside till it expands gradually to double its bulk, before it is put into the oven. But when a dough containing sesqui-carbonate of soda is mixed with one containing muriatic acid, in due proportions to form the just dose of culinary salt, the gas escapes during the necessary incorporation of the two, and the bread formed from it is dense and hard. Dr. Whiting has, however, made this old chemical process the subject of a new patent for baking bread.

[10] Treatise on the Art of Bread Making, p. 56.

When the baker prepares his dough, he takes a portion of the water needed for the batch, having raised its temperature to from 70° to 100° F., dissolves a certain proportion of his salt in it, then adds the yeast, and a certain quantity of his flour. This mixture, called the _sponge_, is next covered up in the small kneading-trough, alongside of the large one, and let alone for _setting_ in a warm situation. In about an hour, signs of vinous fermentation appear, by the swelling and heaving up of the sponge, in consequence of the generation of carbonic acid; and if it be of a semi-liquid consistence, large air bubbles will force their way to the surface, break, and disappear in rapid succession. But when the _sponge_ has the consistence of thin _dough_, it confines the gas, becomes thereby equably and progressively inflated to double its original volume; when no longer capable of containing the pent-up air, it bursts and subsides. This process of rising and falling alternately might be carried on during twenty-four hours, but the baker has learned by experience to guard against allowing full scope to the fermentative principle. He generally interferes after the first, or at furthest after the second or third dropping of the sponge; for were he not to do so, the bread formed with such dough would invariably be found sour to the taste and the smell. Therefore he adds at this stage to the sponge the reserved proportions of flour, salt, and water, which are requisite to make the dough of the desired consistence and size; and next incorporates the whole together by a long and laborious course of kneading. When this operation has been continued till the fermenting and the fresh dough have been intimately blended, and till the glutinous matter of both is worked into such union and consistence that the mass becomes so tough and elastic as to receive the smart pressure of the hand without adhering to it, the kneading is suspended for some time. The dough is now abandoned to itself for a few hours, during which it continues in a state of active fermentation throughout its entire mass. Then it is subjected to a second but much less laborious kneading, in order to distribute the generated gas as evenly as possible among its parts, so that they may all partake equally of the vesicular structure. After this second kneading, the dough is weighed out into the portions suitable to the size of bread desired; which are of course shaped into the proper forms, and once more set aside in a warm situation. The continuance of the fermentation soon disengages a fresh quantity of carbonic acid gas, and expands the lumps to about double their pristine volume. These are now ready for the oven, and when they finally quit it in the baked state, are about twice the size they were when they went in. The generation of the due quantity of gas should be complete before the lumps are transferred to the oven; because whenever they encounter its heat, the process of fermentation is arrested; for it is only the previously existing air which gets expanded throughout every part of the loaf, swells out its volume, and gives it the _piled_ and vesicular texture. Thus the well-baked loaf is composed of an infinite number of cellules filled with carbonic acid gas, and apparently lined with a glutinous membrane of a silky softness. It is this which gives the light, elastic porous constitution to bread.

After suffering the fermentative process to exhaust itself in a mass of dough, and the dough to be brought into that state in which the addition of neither yeast, nor starch, nor gluten will produce any effect in restoring that action, if we mix in 4 per cent. of saccharine matter, of any kind, with a little yeast, the process of fermentation will immediately re-commence, and pursue a course as active and lengthened as at first, and cease about the same period.[11]

[11] Dr. Colquhoun, in Annals of Philosophy for 1826, vol. xii. p.
171.

This experiment, taken in connection with the facts formerly stated, proves that what was called panary fermentation, is nothing but the ancient and well-known process of the vinous fermentation of sugar, which generates alcohol. There seems to be but one objection to the adoption of this theory. After the loaf is baked, there is found in its composition nearly as much saccharine matter as existed in the flour before fermentation. M. Vogel states that in the baked bread there remains 3·6 parts of sugar, out of the 5 parts which it originally contained. Thus, in 100 parts of loaf bread prepared with wheaten flour, distilled water, and yeast without the admixture of any common salt, he found the following ingredients:--

Sugar 8·6
Torrefied or gummy starch 18·0
Starch 53·5
Gluten, combined with a little starch, 20·75

Exclusive of carbonic acid, muriate of lime, phosphate of lime, &c.

It must be borne in mind that in every loaf the process of fermentation has been prematurely checked by the baker’s oven, and therefore the saccharine constituent can never be wholly decomposed. It seems certain, also, that by the action of gluten upon the starch in the early stage of the firing, a quantity of sugar will be formed by the saccharine fermentation; which we have explained in treating of BEER.

Several masses of dough were prepared by Dr. Colquhoun in which pure wheat starch was mixed with common flour, in various proportions. In some of the lumps this starch had been gelatinized, with the _minimum_ of hot water, before it was added to the flour. After introducing the usual dose of salt, the dough was thoroughly kneaded, set apart for the proper period, allowed to ferment in the accustomed way, and then baked in the oven. In outward appearance, increase of bulk, and vesicular texture, none of them differed materially from a common loaf, baked along with them for the sake of comparison; except that when the starch considerably exceeded the proportion of flour in the lump, the loaf, though whiter, had not risen so well, being somewhat less vesicular. But, on tasting the bread of each loaf, those which contained most gelatinized starch were unexpectedly found to be the sweetest. The other loaves, into which smaller quantities of the gelatinized starch had been introduced, or only some dry starch, had no sweetish taste whatever to distinguish them from ordinary bread. These facts seem to establish the conclusion, that the presence of gelatinous starch in bread put into the oven, is a means of forming a certain portion of saccharine matter within the loaf, during the baking process. Now it is more than probable that gelatinized starch does exist, more or less, in all loaves which have been fermented by our usual methods, and hence a certain quantity of sugar will necessarily be generated at its expense, by the action of heat. Thus the difficulty started by M. Vogel is sufficiently solved; and there remains no doubt that, in the saccharine principle of flour, the fermentation has its origin and end, while dough is under fermentation.

The source of the sourness which supervenes in bread, under careless or unskilful hands, had been formerly ascribed to each of all the constituents of flour; to its gluten, its starch, and its sugar; but erroneously, as we now see: for it is merely the result of the second fermentation which always succeeds the vinous, when pushed improperly too far. It has been universally taken for granted by authors, that the acid thus generated in dough is the acetic. But there appear good grounds to believe that it is frequently a less volatile acid, probably the lactic, particularly when the process has been tardy, from the imperfection of the yeast or the bad quality of the flour. The experiments of Vogel, Braconnot, and others, prove that the latter acid is generated very readily, and in considerable quantity during the spontaneous decomposition of a great many vegetable substances, when in a state of humidity. The presence of lactic acid would account for the curious fact, that the acidity of unbaked dough is much more perceptible to the taste than to the smell; while the sourness of the same piece of bread, after coming out of the oven, is, on the contrary, much more obvious to the olfactory organs than to the palate. But this is exactly what ought to happen, if the lactic acid contributes, in conjunction with the acetic, to produce the acescence of the dough. At the ordinary temperature of a bakehouse, the former acid, though very perceptible in the mouth, is not distinguishable by the nostrils; but as it is easily decomposed by heat, no sooner is it exposed to the high temperature of the oven, than it is resolved, in a great measure, into acetic acid[12], and thus becomes more manifest to the sense of smell, and less to that of taste. This theory seems to explain satisfactorily all the phenomena accompanying the progress of fermentation in baker’s dough, and also some of its results in the process of baking which do not easily admit of any other solution.

[12] Berzelius.

There are extremely simple and effectual methods for enabling the baker to adopt measures either to prevent or correct the evil of acescence, and these are to neutralize the acid by the due exhibition of an alkali, such as soda; or an alkaline earth, such as magnesia or chalk. And it affords a striking proof of how much the artisan has been accustomed to plod, uninquiring and uninformed, over the same ground, that a remedy so safe and so economical, should remain at this day unthought of and unemployed by most of the manufacturers of bread in the United Kingdom. The introduction of a small portion of carbonate of soda will rectify any occasional error in the result of the so called panary fermentation, and will, in fact, restore the dough to its pristine sweetness. The quantity of acetate of soda, which will be thus present in the bread, will be altogether inconsiderable; and as it has no disagreeable taste, and is merely aperient to the bowels in a very mild degree, it can form no objection in the eye of the public police. The restoration of dough thus tainted with acid, and its conversion into pleasant and wholesome bread, has been sufficiently verified by experiment. But, according to Mr. Edmund Davy, carbonate of magnesia may be used with still greater advantage, as during the slow action of the acid upon it, the carbonic acid evolved serves to open up and lighten bread which would otherwise be dense and doughy from the indifferent quality of the flour. Here, however, the dangerous temptation lies with a sordid baker to use cheap or damaged flour, and to rectify the bread made of it by chemical agents, innocent in themselves, but injurious as masks of a bad raw material. When sour yeast must be used, as sometimes happens with the country bakers, or in private houses at a distance from beer breweries, there can be no harm, but, on the contrary, much propriety, in correcting its acidity, by the addition of as much carbonate of soda to it as will effect its neutralization, but nothing more. When sour yeast has been thus corrected, it has been found, in practice, to possess its fermentative power unimpaired, and to be equally efficacious, with fresh formed yeast, in making good palatable loaves.

We have seen that, in baking, about one fourth of the starch is converted into a matter possessing the properties of _British gum_ (see STARCH), and also that the gluten, though not decomposed, has its particles disunited, and is not so tough and adhesive as it is in the flour. This principle is also, as we have said, useful in cementing all the particles of the dough into a tenacious mass, capable of confining the elastic fluid generated by the vinous fermentation of the sugar. Starch is the main constituent, the basis of nourishment in bread, as well as in all farinaceous articles of food. The albumen also of the wheat being coagulated by the heat of the oven, contributes to the setting of the bread into a consistent elastic body.

In the mills in the neighbourhood of London, no less than seven distinct sorts of flour are ground out of one quantity of wheat. These are for one quarter--

Fine flour 5 bushels 3 pecks.
Seconds 0 2
Fine middlings 0 1
Coarse middlings 0 0·5
Bran 3 0
Twenty-penny 3 0
Pollard 2
--- ---
14 2·5

So that we have nearly a double bulk of flour, or 14 bushels and 2-1/2 pecks from 8 bushels of wheat. In the sifting of the flour through the bolter, there is a fine white angular meal obtained called sharps, which forms the central part of the grain. It is consumed partly by the fine biscuit bakers. The bakers of this country were formerly bound by law to bake three kinds of bread, the _wheaten_, _standard wheaten_, and the _household_; marked respectively with a W, S W, and H, and if they omitted to make these marks on their bread they were liable to a penalty. The size of the loaves were usually peck, half-peck, quartern, and half-quartern; the weights of which, within 48 hours of their being baked, should have been respectively 17 lbs. 6 oz.; 8 lbs. 11 oz.; 4 lbs. 5 oz. 8 dr.; and 4 lbs. 2 oz. 14 dr. In general they weigh about one-seventh more before they enter the oven, or they lose one-seventh of their weight in baking. The French bread loses fully one-sixth in the oven, owing chiefly to its more oblong thin shape, as compared to the cubical shape of the English bread. But this loss of weight is very variable, being dependent upon the quality of the wheaten flour, and the circumstances of baking. The present law in England defines the quartern loaf at 4 lbs., and subjects the baker to a penalty if the bread be one ounce lighter than the standard. Hence it leaves the baker in self-defence, to leave it in rather a damp and doughy state. But there is much light bread sold in London. I have met with quartern loaves of 3 lbs. 10 ozs. A sack of flour weighing 280 lbs. was presumed by the framers of our former parliamentary acts, for the assize of bread, to be capable of being baked into 80 loaves. If this proportion had been correct, one-fifth part of our quartern loaf must consist of water and salt, and four-fifths of flour. But in general, of good wheaten flour, three parts will take up one part of water; so that the sack of flour should have turned out, and actually did turn out, more than 80 loaves. At present with 4 lb. bread it may well yield 92 loaves.

The following statement of the system of baking at Paris, I received in 1835 from a very competent judge of the business.

1,000 kilogrammes of wheat = 5 quarters English, cost 200 fr., and yield 800 kilos of flour of the best white quality, equivalent to 5-1/10 sacks French. Hence the sack of flour costs 40 francs at the mill, and including the carriage to Paris, it costs 45 or 46 francs.

The profit of the flour dealer is about 3-1/2 francs, and the sale price becomes from 43 to 50 francs.

_Bread manufactured from the above._

_£_ _s._ _d._ _£_ _s._ _d._
One day’s work of an ordinary baker, 6 0 0
who makes fourbatches in a day,
consists of 3 sacks at 50 francs, or
2_l._ sterling each
Salt 2-3/4 lbs. at 2_d._ per lb. 0 0 5-1/2
Yeast or leaven 3 lbs. at 5_d._ 0 1 3
---------------
Total cost of materials 6 1 8-1/2

_Expenses of Baking._

Three workmen at different rates of 0 12 0
wages, 15 francs
Fire-wood 0, as the charcoal pro-
duced pays for it
General expenses, such as rent, 0 12 0
taxes, interest of capital, &c.
----------
1 4 0 = 1 4 0
--------------
7 5 8-1/2

For this sum 315 loaves are made, 7 17 6
being 105 for every sack of flour
weighing 156·66 kilos, or 344-2/3
lbs. avoird. One loaf contains
therefore 344·65/105 = 3·282 lbs.,
and as 100 lbs. of flour in Parisian
baking are reckoned to produce 127
lbs. of bread, each loaf will weigh
4·168 lbs., avoird., and will cost
7_l._ 5_s._ 8-1/2_d._ divided by 315
= 5-1/2_d._ very nearly. The value
of 315 loaves at the sale price of
6_d._ will be
--------------
Upon this day’s work the clear 0 11 9-1/2
profit is therefore

A new baking establishment has been recently formed at the Royal Clarence Victualling Establishment at Weevil, near Portsmouth, upon a scale of magnitude nearly sufficient to supply the whole royal navy with biscuits, and that of a very superior description. The following account of it is taken from the United Service Journal. “It having been discovered that the flour supplied to government by contract, had in many instances been most shamefully adulterated, the corn is ground at mills comprised within the establishment, by which means the introduction of improper ingredients is prevented, and precisely the proportion of bran which is requisite in the composition of good sea-biscuit is retained, and no more. The flour-mill is furnished with 10 pairs of stones, by which 40 bushels of flour may be ground and dressed ready for baking, in an hour. The baking establishment consists of 9 ovens, each 13 feet long by 11 feet wide, and 17-1/2 inches in height. These are each heated by separate furnaces, so constructed that a blast of hot air and fire sweeps through them, and gives to the interior the requisite dose of heat in an incredible short space of time. The first operation in making the biscuits, consists in mixing the flour or rather meal and water; 13 gallons of water are first introduced into a trough, and then a sack of the meal, weighing 280 lbs. When the whole has been poured in by a channel communicating with an upper room, a bell rings, and the trough is closed. An apparatus consisting of two sets of what are called knives, each set ten in number, are then made to revolve amongst the flour and water by means of machinery. This mixing operation lasts one minute and a half, during which time the double set of knives or stirrers makes twenty-six revolutions. The next process is to cast the lumps of dough under what are called the breaking-rollers,--huge cylinders of iron, weighing 14 cwt. each, and moved horizontally by the machinery along stout tables. The dough is thus formed into large rude masses 6 feet long by 3 feet broad, and several inches thick. At this stage of the business, the kneading is still very imperfect, and traces of dry flour may still be detected. These great masses of dough are now drawn out, and cut into a number of smaller masses about a foot and a half long by a foot wide, and again thrust under the rollers, which is repeated until the mixture is so complete that not the slightest trace of any inequality is discoverable in any part of the mass. It should have been stated that two workmen stand one at each side of the rollers, and as the dough is flattened out, they fold it up, or double one part upon another, so that the roller at its next passage squeezes these parts together, and forces them to mix. The dough is next cut into small portions, and being placed upon large flat boards, is, by the agency of machinery, conveyed from the centre to the extremity of the baking-room. Here it is received by a workman, who places it under what is called the sheet roller, but which, for size, colour, and thickness, more nearly resembles a blanket. The kneading is thus complete, and the dough only requires to be cut into biscuits before it is committed to the oven. The cutting is effected by what is called the cutting-plate, consisting of a net-work of 52 sharp-edged hexagonal frames, each as large as a biscuit. This frame is moved slowly up and down by machinery, and the workman, watching his opportunity, slides under it the above-described blanket of dough, which is about the size of a leaf of a dining table; and the cutting-frame in its descent indents the sheet, but does not actually cut it through, but leaves sufficient substance to enable the workman at the mouth of the oven to jerk the whole mass of biscuits unbroken into it. The dough is prevented sticking to the cutting-frame by the following ingenious device: between each of the cutter-frames is a small flat open frame, movable up and down, and loaded with an iron ball, weighing several ounces. When the great frame comes down upon the dough, and cuts out 52 biscuits, each of these minor frames yields to the pressure, and is raised up; but as soon as the great frame rises, the weight of the balls acting upon the little frames, thrusts the whole blanket off, and allows the workmen to pull it out. One quarter of an hour is sufficient to bake the biscuit, which is afterwards placed for three days in a drying room, heated to 85° or 90°, which completes the process.” The following statement of the performance of the machinery is taken from actual experiment; in 116 days, during 68 of which, the work was continued for only 7-1/2 hours; and during 48, for only 5-3/4 hours each day, in all 769 working hours, equal to 77 days of 10 hours each; the following quantity of biscuit was baked in the 9 ovens; viz., 12,307 cwt. = 1,378,400 lbs. The wages of the men employed in baking this quantity amounted to 273_l._ 10_s._ 9-1/2_d._; if it had been made by hand, the wages would have been 933_l._ 9_s._ 10_d._; saving in the wages of labour, 659_l._ 7_s._ 0-1/2_d._ In this, is not included any part of the interest of the sum laid out upon the machine, or expended in keeping it in order. But in a very few years at such an immense rate of saving, the cost of the engine and other machinery will be repaid. This admirable apparatus is the invention of T. T. Grant, Esq. storekeeper of the Royal Clarence Victualling Establishment, who, we believe, has been properly rewarded, by a grant of 2,000_l._ from government.

The labour of incorporating the ingredients of bread, viz. flour, water and salt, or kneading dough, is so great as to have led to the contrivance of various mechanical modes of producing the same effect. One of the most ingenious is that for which a patent was obtained in August, 1830, by Mr. Edwin Clayton. It consists of a rotatory kneading trough, or rather barrel, mounted in bearings with a hollow axle, and of an interior frame of cast iron made to revolve by a solid axle which passes through the hollow one; in the frame there are cutters diagonally placed for kneading the dough. The revolving frame and its barrel are made to turn in contrary directions, so as greatly to save time and equalize the operation. This double action represents kneading by the two hands, in which the dough is inverted from time to time, torn asunder, and reunited in every different form. The mechanism will be readily understood from the following description.

_Fig._ 169. exhibits a front elevation of a rotatory kneading trough, constructed according to improvements specified by the patentee, the barrel being shown in section: _a_ is the barrel, into which the several ingredients, consisting of flour, water, and yeast, are put, which barrel is mounted in the frame-work _b_, with hollow axles _c_ and _d_, which hollow axles turn in suitable bearings at _e_; _f_ is the revolving frame which is mounted in the interior of the barrel _a_, by axles _g_ and _h_. The ends of this revolving frame are fastened, or braced together by means of the oblique cutters or braces _i_, which act upon the dough when the machine is put in motion, and thus cause the operation of kneading.

Either the barrel may be made to revolve without the rotatory frame, or the rotatory frame without the barrel, or both may be made to revolve together, but in opposite ways. These several motions may be obtained by means of the geer-work, shown at _k_, _l_, and _m_, as will be presently described.