LIGHT-WEIGHT BREAD

Grey River Argus, 17 September 1937, Page 9

LIGHT-WEIGHT BREAD

ARE TESTS FAIR ? Weighing Questioned [Per Press Association]. CHRISTCHURCH, September 16. “The mere weighing of loaves of bread as a means of preventing fraudulent light-weight is crude, is often unfair to a baker, and has so many disadvantages that some better means to that end should be adopted.” Thus ran an extract from a report of the Director (Dr. F. W. Hilgendorf) which was submitted to the quarterly meeting of the Whedt Research institute. It was stated by Dr. Hilgendorf that, when bread was underweight, it was usually because it had lost more water than was expected during baking. It was very rarely, if ever, because it contained too little flour, or other solid ingredients. He stated that, to see if a more satisfactory method than the weighing of the loaves could be devised, a trial was made at: the Institute with two pound loaves. Equal weights of the same flour were mixed with different quantities of water, and were baked for different lengths of time. The loaves baked were found to vary greatly in weight, although they all contained the same weight of useful constituents, namely, flour, yeast, salt and sugar. The loaves were then sliced, dried, and ground into coarse meal The meal then sampled, and the moisture determined, so that the weight of dry matter in the loaf could be calculated. It was found that the dry matter* weighed the same, no matter what the loaf weighed.