Aërated bread : the new system of bread manufacture.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Aërated bread : the new system of bread manufacture. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/38 (page 8)
    a paper by Dr. Odiing, read before the Chemical Section of the British Association at Aberdeen, and sum up the advantages of the aerated process in comparison with the old method of bread-making by the aid of fermentation. “ 1st. Its cleanliness. Instead of the dough being mixed with naked arms or feet, the bread, from the wetting of the flour to the completion of the baking, is not, and scarcely can be, touched by any one. 2nd. Its rapidity. An hour and a half serves for the entire conversion of a sack of flour into baked loaves ; wdiereas in the ordinary process four or five hours are occupied in the formation of the sponge, and a further time in the kneading, raising, and baking of the dough. 3rd. Its preventiny deterioration of the flour. In making fermented bread from certain varieties of flour, not in themselves unwholesome, the prolonged action of warmth and moisture induces a change of the starchy matter of the flour into dextrine, whereby the bread becomes sodden and dark-coloured. This change is usually prevented by the addition of alum, which is, indeed, an almost necessary ingredient in the manufacture of bread from glucogenic flour. But in operating by the new process, there is no time for the glucogenic change to take place, and consequently no advantage in the use of alum, even with any description of flour, 4th. Its certainty and uniformity. Owing to differences in the character and rapidity of the fermentation, dependent on variations of temperature, quality of yeast, &c., the manufacture of fermented bread frequently presents certain vagaries and irregularities from which the new process is entirely free. 5th. The character of the bread. Chemical analysis shows that the flour has undergone less deterioration in bread made by the new, than in that made by the fermented process. In other words, the percentage of extracted matters is smaller. The new bread has been tried dietetically at Guy’s Hospital, and by many London phy¬ sicians, has been highly approved of. It is well known that, for some years past, the use of fermented bread in dyspeptic cases has been objected to by members of the medical profession, the debris of the yeast being considered unwholesome, and liable to induce acidity. 6th. Its economy. The cost of carbonic acid is alleged to be less than the cost of yeast. Moreover, in making fermented bread there is a small but necessary waste of the saccharine constituents, which is avoided in the new process. 7th. The saving of labour and health. It substitutes machine labour for manual labour of a very exhausting kind. The sanitary condition of journeymen bakers was investigated some time ago by Dr. Guy, and found to be most lamentable, from their constant night-work, and from the fatiguing and unwholesome character of their labour, particularly the kneading. In a politico-economical point of view, the process is important as removing bread-making from a domestic manual work to a manufacturing machine-work. From the character of the apparatus, the process can only be used profitably on a large scale, and not in small bakeries.