Make any quantity of wheaten flour into a stiff paste with cold water, and let it be kneaded and wrought in the hands under water; or put the flour into a coarse linen bag, and knead it between the hands whilst a small rill of cold water is suffered to pass over it. The water will carry away the starch in the form of a white powder, and the dough become more and more elastic, in proportion as the water carries off the starch; continue kneading the mass till the water runs off from the kneaded dough colourless. It will also be observed, that in proportion as the water carries off the starch, the paste in the bag assumes a more grey colour, less brilliant, as it were semi-transparent, and of a softer consistence, but, at the same time, more tenaceous, more viscid, more gluey, and more elastic.
Thus the flour is separated into three substances, by a method incapable of decomposing or altering any of its immediate constituent parts. The starch is precipitated in a white powder at the bottom of the water, from which it may readily be separated by suffering it to subside, and the supernatant liquid, contains in solution the saccharine mucilage; this may be obtained in the form of a syrup, by evaporating slowly in a warm place the clear decanted fluid; and the third substance, the gluten, remains in the bag, in the state of a soft, cohesive, and elastic substance.
In a similar manner the analysis of any species of bread corn may be effected.
QUANTITY OF FLOUR OBTAINABLE FROM VARIOUS KINDS OF CEREAL AND LEGUMINOUS SEEDS EMPLOYED IN THE FABRICATION OF BREAD, AND DIFFERENT KINDS OF FLOUR MANUFACTURED FROM WHEAT.
The Board of Agriculture, in order to ascertain what each of the various sorts of grain employed as substitutes for bread-corn would produce, when ground into flour, with only the broad bran taken out, caused a bushel of each of the undermentioned sorts of seeds to be ground for their inspection: the weight of the grain, as well as the bran and the flour, was as follows:
| Weight | Weight | ||
| Weighed. | of Flour. | of Bran. | |
| One Bushel of | lb. | lb. oz. | lb. oz. |
| Barley | 46 | 38 10½ | 5 10½ |
| Buckwheat | 46¼ | 38 9 | 5 5 |
| Rye | 54 | 43 0 | 9 5½ |
| Maize | 53 | 44 0 | 8 10½ |
| Rice | 61¼ | 60 5 | 0 0 |
| Oats | 38¼ | 23 5 | 13 10½ |
| Beans | 57¾ | 43 5½ | 12 5 |
| Pease | 61¾ | 47 0 | 12 5 |
A bushel of wheat, upon an average, weighs sixty-one pounds; when ground, the meal weighs 60¾ lbs.; this on being dressed, produces 46¾ lbs. of flour of the sort called seconds, which alone is used for the making of bread in London, and throughout the greater part of this country; and of pollard and bran 12¾ lbs., which quantity, when bolted, produces 3 lbs. of fine flour; this when sifted produces in good second flour 1¼ lb.
| lbs. | ||
| The whole quantity of bread-flour obtained from the bushel of wheat, weighs | 48 | |
| lbs. | ||
| Fine pollard | 4¼ | |
| Coarse pollard | 4 | 11 |
| Bran | 2¾ | |
| — | ||
| The whole together | 59 | |
| To which add the loss of weight in manufacturing the bushel of wheat | 2 | |
| — | ||
| Produces the original weight | 61 |
REASON WHY OATS, PEASE, BEANS, RICE, MAIZE, MILLET, BUCKWHEAT, AND OTHER NUTRITIVE GRAINS CANNOT BE MADE INTO LIGHT AND POROUS BREAD.
Every person is acquainted with the difference there is between light well fermented bread, and that which is sodden, heavy, and badly risen, and the decided preference given to the former over the latter, as the most palatable, and easy of digestion.