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

QUANTITY OF BREAD OBTAINABLE FROM A GIVEN QUANTITY OF WHEATEN FLOUR.

A sack of flour, weighing two hundred and eighty pounds, is made with five pounds of salt, and from three to four pints of yeast, into dough, with the requisite quantity of water, which varies according to the quality of the flour.

The older the flour, provided the wheat has been sound, and the flour well preserved, the greater will be the quantity of water required to convert it into a stiff dough, and the greater the produce of bread.

The quantity of flour for a quartern loaf is reckoned at an average, three pounds and a half, which produces, if the flour be of the best quality, five pounds avoirdupoise of dough. The quartern loaf produced from this quantity of flour weighs four pounds, five ounces and a half, and hence the dough loses, during baking, eleven ounces and a half.

The quantity of bread obtainable from the same quantity of flour is, however, much influenced by the manner in which the dough is fermented, and the skilful regulation of the heat employed for baking the bread.

A variation of temperature also makes a considerable difference to the baker’s profit or loss. In summer, a sack of flour will yield a quartern loaf more than in winter; and the sifting it, before it is wetted, if it does not make it produce more bread, certainly causes the loaves to be larger.

The loss of weight occasioned by the heat is proportional to the extent of the surface of the loaf, and to the length of time it remains in the oven. Hence the smaller the surface, or the nearer the figure of the loaf approaches to a globe, the smaller is the loss of weight sustained in baking; and the longer the loaf continues in the oven the greater is the loss.

A loaf that weighed just four pounds when taken out of the oven, after the usual baking, was put in again, and after ten minutes was found to have lost two ounces, and in ten minutes more it lost another ounce. The longer bread is kept the lighter it is, unless it be kept in a damp place, or wrapt round with a wet cloth, which is an excellent method of preserving bread fresh and free from mould, for a long time.