Points of Difference in Various Brands of Flour.
MUCH trouble in cooking arises from the difference in various brands of flour. There are often, indeed, variations in the same brand. All are caused by the different modes of making the flour, and changes in the kind of wheat used.
When flour is made by the roller process, two cupfuls will make a much stiffer batter than flour made by the old process of grinding between stones, or produced by first crushing by rollers and then grinding between stones. Millers all over the country are always looking for, and frequently making, improvements in the processes which they are accustomed to follow. This necessarily results in changes in the texture and quality of their products. Then, too, it makes a difference whether the wheat used is spring or winter wheat. In the Eastern States, where mills are few, the flour comes largely from Minnesota and other Western States. This flour has in the last fifteen or twenty years been made almost wholly by the roller process, and chiefly of spring wheat. The distinguishing quality of this flour is this: if rubbed between the fingers it feels rough and granular, and if pressed in the hand it will not hold its shape, but fall apart as granulated sugar would. When using this flour by measure, allow one eighth more wetting than for flour made by grinding between stones.
Recently a number of millers have modified the new process by using the rollers for cleansing, separating, and grinding until the last stages of the work, when the flour is put between stones and ground smooth and fine. When this is done the distinguishing features between the old and new processes are lost. This flour is smooth to the touch, will keep its shape if pressed in the hand, and will not absorb as much moisture as the more granular kind. It can be used equally well for bread, cake, and pastry. Some of the mills in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan make this flour in perfection.
Flour that is made of new spring wheat will not give so good bread when first made as it will after it has been kept for a month or more. A great deal of the trouble with bread comes from this condition of the flour. A barrel of flour that will not make good bread to-day, simply because the wheat was too new when ground, will, if kept for two months, make perfect bread, if the yeast be good; for, after all, the yeast is more frequently than the flour the cause of failure to make satisfactory bread.
When one buys flour in small quantities there will always be an uncertainty as to how it will work until after the first time it is used. Even in small families it is better to get flour by the barrel, as it improves with age. Another thing for the housekeeper to remember is that the whitest flour is not the most nutritious. What is called first-quality flour does not contain nearly so large a quantity of the best elements of the wheat as the second quality, which is much darker, but gives a sweeter and more nutritious loaf.
It is wonderful to see the various processes through which the wheat goes before it comes out of the mill. There is no question that flour which is made by the roller process in the first stages and finally ground between the stones will give the most satisfaction. The wheat is more thoroughly cleaned than when the flour is made wholly by the old process, and the separation of the hard substance and the dust from the wheat is more thorough than by the old mode, and therefore when the flour comes from the millstones it is free from undesirable substances.