Fine flour5 bushels 3 pecks.
Seconds0 2
Fine middlings0 1
Coarse middlings0 0·5
Bran3 0
Twenty-penny3 0
Pollard2
14 2·5

So that we have nearly a double bulk of flour, or 14 bushels and 21⁄2 pecks from 8 bushels of wheat. In the sifting of the flour through the bolter, there is a fine white angular meal obtained called sharps, which forms the central part of the grain. It is consumed partly by the fine biscuit bakers. The bakers of this country were formerly bound by law to bake three kinds of bread, the wheaten, standard wheaten, and the household; marked respectively with a W, S W, and H, and if they omitted to make these marks on their bread they were liable to a penalty. The size of the loaves were usually peck, half-peck, quartern, and half-quartern; the weights of which, within 48 hours of their being baked, should have been respectively 17 lbs. 6 oz.; 8 lbs. 11 oz.; 4 lbs. 5 oz. 8 dr.; and 4 lbs. 2 oz. 14 dr. In general they weigh about one-seventh more before they enter the oven, or they lose one-seventh of their weight in baking. The French bread loses fully one-sixth in the oven, owing chiefly to its more oblong thin shape, as compared to the cubical shape of the English bread. But this loss of weight is very variable, being dependent upon the quality of the wheaten flour, and the circumstances of baking. The present law in England defines the quartern loaf at 4 lbs., and subjects the baker to a penalty if the bread be one ounce lighter than the standard. Hence it leaves the baker in self-defence, to leave it in rather a damp and doughy state. But there is much light bread sold in London. I have met with quartern loaves of 3 lbs. 10 ozs. A sack of flour weighing 280 lbs. was presumed by the framers of our former parliamentary acts, for the assize of bread, to be capable of being baked into 80 loaves. If this proportion had been correct, one-fifth part of our quartern loaf must consist of water and salt, and four-fifths of flour. But in general, of good wheaten flour, three parts will take up one part of water; so that the sack of flour should have turned out, and actually did turn out, more than 80 loaves. At present with 4 lb. bread it may well yield 92 loaves.

The following statement of the system of baking at Paris, I received in 1835 from a very competent judge of the business.

1,000 kilogrammes of wheat = 5 quarters English, cost 200 fr., and yield 800 kilos of flour of the best white quality, equivalent to 51⁄10 sacks French. Hence the sack of flour costs 40 francs at the mill, and including the carriage to Paris, it costs 45 or 46 francs.

The profit of the flour dealer is about 31⁄2 francs, and the sale price becomes from 43 to 50 francs.

Bread manufactured from the above.
£s.d. £s.d.
One day’s work of an ordinary baker, who makes four batches in a day, consists of 3 sacks at 50francs, or 2l. sterling each 600
Salt 23⁄4 lbs. at 2d. per lb. 0051⁄2
Yeast or leaven 3 lbs. at 5d. 013
Total cost of materials 6181⁄2
Expenses of Baking.
Three workmen at different rates of wages, 15 francs0120
Fire-wood 0, as the charcoal produced pays for it
General expenses, such as rent, taxes, interest of capital, &c.0120
140=140
7581⁄2
For this sum 315 loaves are made, being 105 for every sack of flour weighing 156·66 kilos, or3442⁄3 lbs. avoird. One loaf contains therefore 344·65105 = 3·282 lbs., and as 100 lbs. of flour inParisian baking are reckoned to produce 127 lbs. of bread, each loaf will weigh 4·168 lbs., avoird., and will cost 7l.5s. 81⁄2d. divided by 315 = 51⁄2d. very nearly. The valueof 315 loaves at the sale price of 6d. will be 7176
Upon this day’s work the clear profit is therefore 01191⁄2

A new baking establishment has been recently formed at the Royal Clarence Victualling Establishment at Weevil, near Portsmouth, upon a scale of magnitude nearly sufficient to supply the whole royal navy with biscuits, and that of a very superior description. The following account of it is taken from the United Service Journal. “It having been discovered that the flour supplied to government by contract, had in many instances been most shamefully adulterated, the corn is ground at mills comprised within the establishment, by which means the introduction of improper ingredients is prevented, and precisely the proportion of bran which is requisite in the composition of good sea-biscuit is retained, and no more. The flour-mill is furnished with 10 pairs of stones, by which 40 bushels of flour may be ground and dressed ready for baking, in an hour. The baking establishment consists of 9 ovens, each 13 feet long by 11 feet wide, and 171⁄2 inches in height. These are each heated by separate furnaces, so constructed that a blast of hot air and fire sweeps through them, and gives to the interior the requisite dose of heat in an incredible short space of time. The first operation in making the biscuits, consists in mixing the flour or rather meal and water; 13 gallons of water are first introduced into a trough, and then a sack of the meal, weighing 280 lbs. When the whole has been poured in by a channel communicating with an upper room, a bell rings, and the trough is closed. An apparatus consisting of two sets of what are called knives, each set ten in number, are then made to revolve amongst the flour and water by means of machinery. This mixing operation lasts one minute and a half, during which time the double set of knives or stirrers makes twenty-six revolutions. The next process is to cast the lumps of dough under what are called the breaking-rollers,—huge cylinders of iron, weighing 14 cwt. each, and moved horizontally by the machinery along stout tables. The dough is thus formed into large rude masses 6 feet long by 3 feet broad, and several inches thick. At this stage of the business, the kneading is still very imperfect, and traces of dry flour may still be detected. These great masses of dough are now drawn out, and cut into a number of smaller masses about a foot and a half long by a foot wide, and again thrust under the rollers, which is repeated until the mixture is so complete that not the slightest trace of any inequality is discoverable in any part of the mass. It should have been stated that two workmen stand one at each side of the rollers, and as the dough is flattened out, they fold it up, or double one part upon another, so that the roller at its next passage squeezes these parts together, and forces them to mix. The dough is next cut into small portions, and being placed upon large flat boards, is, by the agency of machinery, conveyed from the centre to the extremity of the baking-room. Here it is received by a workman, who places it under what is called the sheet roller, but which, for size, colour, and thickness, more nearly resembles a blanket. The kneading is thus complete, and the dough only requires to be cut into biscuits before it is committed to the oven. The cutting is effected by what is called the cutting-plate, consisting of a net-work of 52 sharp-edged hexagonal frames, each as large as a biscuit. This frame is moved slowly up and down by machinery, and the workman, watching his opportunity, slides under it the above-described blanket of dough, which is about the size of a leaf of a dining table; and the cutting-frame in its descent indents the sheet, but does not actually cut it through, but leaves sufficient substance to enable the workman at the mouth of the oven to jerk the whole mass of biscuits unbroken into it. The dough is prevented sticking to the cutting-frame by the following ingenious device: between each of the cutter-frames is a small flat open frame, movable up and down, and loaded with an iron ball, weighing several ounces. When the great frame comes down upon the dough, and cuts out 52 biscuits, each of these minor frames yields to the pressure, and is raised up; but as soon as the great frame rises, the weight of the balls acting upon the little frames, thrusts the whole blanket off, and allows the workmen to pull it out. One quarter of an hour is sufficient to bake the biscuit, which is afterwards placed for three days in a drying room, heated to 85° or 90°, which completes the process.” The following statement of the performance of the machinery is taken from actual experiment; in 116 days, during 68 of which, the work was continued for only 71⁄2 hours; and during 48, for only 53⁄4 hours each day, in all 769 working hours, equal to 77 days of 10 hours each; the following quantity of biscuit was baked in the 9 ovens; viz., 12,307 cwt. = 1,378,400 lbs. The wages of the men employed in baking this quantity amounted to 273l. 10s. 91⁄2d.; if it had been made by hand, the wages would have been 933l. 9s. 10d.; saving in the wages of labour, 659l. 7s. 01⁄2d. In this, is not included any part of the interest of the sum laid out upon the machine, or expended in keeping it in order. But in a very few years at such an immense rate of saving, the cost of the engine and other machinery will be repaid. This admirable apparatus is the invention of T. T. Grant, Esq. storekeeper of the Royal Clarence Victualling Establishment, who, we believe, has been properly rewarded, by a grant of 2,000l. from government.

The labour of incorporating the ingredients of bread, viz. flour, water and salt, or kneading dough, is so great as to have led to the contrivance of various mechanical modes of producing the same effect. One of the most ingenious is that for which a patent was obtained in August, 1830, by Mr. Edwin Clayton. It consists of a rotatory kneading trough, or rather barrel, mounted in bearings with a hollow axle, and of an interior frame of cast iron made to revolve by a solid axle which passes through the hollow one; in the frame there are cutters diagonally placed for kneading the dough. The revolving frame and its barrel are made to turn in contrary directions, so as greatly to save time and equalize the operation. This double action represents kneading by the two hands, in which the dough is inverted from time to time, torn asunder, and reunited in every different form. The mechanism will be readily understood from the following description.