As in everything connected with baking, during the past few years great improvements have been made in bakers’ ovens. Science has been brought to bear upon them, and we now have them heated by gas or steam in addition to coal and coke, besides improved alterations in many ways.
Nor do modern improvements in baking appliances stop short at ovens. Most bakers doing a good business use kneading machines, of which there are many in the market. With one exception—that of the Adair mixer, which has no arms nor beaters, but simply rotates, and by this action the flour and water pass through the rods of iron, which are placed crosswise in the machine, and become perfectly and proportionately mixed—they are all, more or less, on the same principle, of revolving arms, blades, or knives by which the flour and water are properly mixed, and the position of the dough being perpetually changed, it is effectually kneaded without the objectionable intervention of manual labour.
The earliest kneading machine that I can find mentioned is in 1850, when the illustrious philosopher, Arago, presented and recommended to the Institute of France the kneading and baking apparatus of M. Rolland, then a humble baker of the Twelfth Arrondissement. The kneading machine was described as exceedingly simple, and capable of being worked, when under a full charge, by a young man from 15 to 20 years old, the necessity for horse labour or steam power being thus obviated; and it was claimed that in less than twenty minutes a sack of flour could be converted into a perfect homogeneous and aërated dough altogether superior to any dough that could be obtained by manual kneading.
Another attempted improvement in the manufacture of bread was aërating the dough without using any ferment, such as yeast, etc., and this has been accomplished by means of mixing hydrochloric acid and carbonate of soda with the dough, or using bicarbonate of ammonia, or forcing carbonic acid into the water with which the flour is mixed. The latter is called the Dauglish system, from its inventor, the late John Dauglish, M.D. (born 1824, died January 14, 1866), and it is now in full working operation.
By this system carbonic acid gas is generated as if for making soda water, and, supposing a sack of flour was to be converted into dough, the following would be the treatment: A lid at the top of the mixer is opened, and the flour passed down into it through a spout from the floor above. The lid of the mixer is then fitted tightly on, and the air within it exhausted by the pump. The requisite quantity of water, about 17 gallons, is drawn into the water vessel, and carbonic acid is forced into it till the pressure amounts to from 15lb. to 25lb. per square inch. The aërated water is then passed into the mixer, and the mixing arms are set in motion, by which, in about seven minutes, the flour and water are incorporated into a perfectly uniform paste. At the lower end of the mixer a cavity is arranged, gauged to hold sufficient dough for a 2lb. loaf, and by a turn of a lever that quantity is dropped into a pan ready for at once depositing in the oven. The whole of the operations can be performed in less than half an hour.
The advantages of this system are absolute purity and cleanliness, but it is simply porous dough, and has not got the flavour of fermented bread. The plant, too, is very expensive, which renders it impossible for the ordinary baker to adopt it.
Certainly, machinery has been applied with very great advantage to the manufacture of another kind of bread, on which they that go down upon the sea in ships were wont to depend—namely, ship’s biscuits. Badly made of bad materials, and ofttimes full of weevils were they, so hard that they had to be soaked in some liquid before they could be eaten, or else broken up and boiled with the pea soup.
Up to the year 1833 the ships of the Royal Navy were supplied with biscuits made at Gosport by gangs of five men, severally named the furner, the mate, the driver, the brakeman, and the idleman. The driver made the dough in a trough with his naked arms. The rough dough was then placed on a wooden platform, to be worked by the brakeman, who kneaded it by riding and jumping on it. Then it was taken to a moulding board, cut into slips, moulded by hand, docked, or pierced full of holes, and pitched into the oven by the joint action of the gang. The nine ovens in the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard required the labour of 45 men to keep them in full operation, and the product was about 14cwt. of biscuit per hour, at a cost for labour and utensils of 1s. 7d. per cwt. This system was superseded by machinery, and biscuits have been for many years past produced with almost incredible rapidity, perfect in kneading, moulding, and baking, and at a cost for labour and utensils of less than a third of the old outlay.