A treatise on the art of making good wholesome bread of wheat, oats, rye, barley and other farinaceous grains / Exhibiting the alimentary properties and chemical constitution of different kinds of bread corn, and of the various substitutes used for bread, in different parts of the world

by Friedrich Christian Accum

Barley Bread.

Barley, next to wheat, is the most profitable of the farinaceous grains, and when mixed with a small proportion of wheat flour, may be made into bread. Barley bread is not spongy, and feels heavier in the hand than wheaten bread.

To remedy this defect in part, it is always best to set the sponge with wheat flour only, for barley flour does not readily ferment with yeast, and adding the barley flour, when the dough is intended to be made. Bread made in this way requires to be kept a longer time in the oven than wheaten bread, and the heat of the oven should also be somewhat greater; but barley bread is sometimes made without the addition of wheaten flour.

Suppose a bushel of barley to weigh fifty-two pounds and a half to be made into bread; let it be sent to the mill, and have the bran taken out, which, with what is lost in grinding and dressing, will probably reduce it to forty-four pounds. If the meal be kneaded into dough, with water, yeast, and salt, suffered to rise, and then divided into eight loaves, and thoroughly baked, they will weigh about sixty pounds, after drawn out of the oven, and left two hours to cool.

Barley bread is eaten by many of the farmers and labourers in husbandry, also by the miners in Devonshire and Cornwall.