FIELD TO TABLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16326, 23 August 1913, Page 15

FIELD TO TABLE.

ROMANTIC HISTORY OF BREAD MAKING. (“Rochester Democrat.”) To most housekeepers flour is flour. Those why buy their bread know still less about it, but the history of the development of the flour industry is a romance that people know little about. Nor does the housewife know that the best flour mills have testing kitchens in which a samplo of every brand of flour sent out is converted into bread. In spotless kitchens, where walls and tables are painted white and ovens shine with their nickel fixtures, an experienced baker gives the final test to all flour that is ready to be shipped. Usually tho baking is done in the afternoon, and as. a rule from seventy to one hundred loaves of bread are baked. Tho cook does nothing but make this bread, and he guesses at nothing. Everything is weighed and measured, and ho claims that it is because so many housewives guess at amounts that there are failures in cooking. Ho measures his flour, water, yeast and degree of heat in the ovens, and though the loaves may be different when they aro baked it is not because of variation in any of these features, but because the various samples of flour may be different. This is just what he is TRYING TO FIND OUT. "When tho loaves are dono they aro spread out to cool, and late in the afternoon tho head millers file into the kitchen, cut each a loaf in two parts, and feel, smell and taste them. If they weigh too much or not enough, if the air cells aro too big or too small, the miller knows that lot of flour is not up to the standard, and cannot be marked with thq firm’s name. This sometimes happens, but not often, because of the many careful processes through which the grain goes before it reaches the last test in the kitchen.

Ail this, interesting as it may be, is but tlie final process in one of the most radical changes in tho past fifty years, the development of improved processes in tho making of flour. It was a reform so marvellous that it swept everything before it, cheapened and improved bread and changed the importtanco ol States on tho map. It was a reform that built- up transportation companies, utterly abolished the oldfashioned mills and brought a new order of things. All this, too, has been accomplished since the early ’7o’s, when tho purifier, the wonder worker, came into use. This purifier is a device to separate the middlings and flour and purify middlings so an oxcellent flour can bo produced. It consists largely of wooden frames with long stretches of silk belting - cloth through which carefully regulated currents of air are passed. " These lift out the branny, fibrous particles, while tho heavier flour granules are sifted through. This is repeated many times until all granules arc removed from the flour and EVERY SPECK OF FIBRE IS SEPARATED. Dust collectors connected with the purifier cntcli dust in tubes and carry it to the top of the mill and out. Another radical, change was on tho way. This was ' the substitution of rolls for mill stones. Go to a. modern mill equipped with the latest machinery, with a skilled ch;-mist in charge of the laboratory, skilled bakers i:i iho khehen and skilled millers working night and day to turn out the Notice tile immaculate cleanliness of the men in their white'uniforms, the shining brass and finely-finished machinery. and son c of the machine rooms with white

marble wainscotting, white enamelled walls and ceiling, and white tile* floor. Let us watch this process of flourmaking. First, when the wheat is brought from the elevators it is put through machines called separators, which take out the oats, screenings, dust and foreign matter. These separators are made of metal sheets perforated with round holes because the kernels of wheat and foreign, matter are shaped differently. This takea about three minutes, but as the process goes on continuously day and night, time is not measured. From the separator the wheat passes to the cockle machine, a small cylinder with Mentations which form little pockets and as the cockle' 6eeds are smaller and rounder than the wheat they fall into these pockets and are separated from the rest, being later thrown out and SOLD AS SCREENINGS as they would discolour the flour if allowed to remain. The wheat is now ready to be washed and dried. Long tubes reach from the top of the mill to or near the bottom floor. These are made of sheets of galvanised iron with 6uch small 6lots that air can continually pass through without allowing tne wheat to escape. Hot air is generated by fanning steam coils, and this acts on the tubes so that tne contents are being washed continuously until they nearly reach tho bottom, when cold air meets the hot blast and dries the .wheat on the inside of the tube.

Washed and dried in this manner, the wheat must next be scoured- These scouring machines revolve, nearly 400 times a minute, and consist of metal cylinders with projections or beaters which hurl the wheat against the outer chilled iron case. This friction takes off the dirt and fuzzy hair on -the wheat, while a fan on the sam© machine sucks the dust away. . Three times this is repeated, after which the wheat is tempered and scoured again and an aspirator or air machine takea away any light dust that may still linger. - / - ■ All this is merely preparatory— if time were measured it takes about twenty minutes so fast and automatically do the machines work —and this is. going on continuously. The wheat. is now ready to be prepared by what is known ns the gradual i eduction process, and it begins by first passing over a set of rollers known a 3 the first break. These rollers are corrugated and inclosed, in a metal frame and are arranged to RUN AT DIFFERENT SPEEDS so that tho kernels may be broken with a view to obtain as many middlings as possible for the best flour is made from these purified middlings. Five times the wheat is broken in this way. and after each breaking the product is bolted on a machine called a sifter. This not only separates the middlings and flour, but grades it. From tlieso tho different sized middlings pass 'to purifiers, which are frames covered with silk cloths, graded to suit the different sizes of tho grain. Tho sieves in these purifiers vibrate 500 times a minute and continually keep fho middlings in motion, while a current of air is introduced so .take out light impurities. In this way the coarsest particles fall from the others and are treated separately, while the pure and fine middlings fall through tho meshes of silk cloth and thence to rolls, where they are ground. These rolls aro very smooth, are made of chilled iron and revolve at slightly differential speed so that the miller can carefully adjust them to suit a gradual grinding. After every grinding the middlings aro bolted through more sifters consisting of bolting cloth sieves, and this stock is classified by the miller as he desires. The finished product then goes to the packer and all material too coarse for flour is purified and ground again and again. Until it reaches the* packer the flour has not been touched by hand, but has been going through an automatic process so wonderful and complete that it requires only eight skilled men to turn cut 3000 barrels and these men aro chiefly employed in watching iho operations. Of course, this does not include the laboratory force or the unskilled labourers, such as floor sweepers, etc.