Wheat flour

“ Whole Wheat Flour.—It is claimed that bran in Graham flour often proves an irritant to delicate digestive organs. In whole wheat flour we have the entire food principle of the grain without the hull. The cold blast process of milling gives us this flour of a very superior quality.
Whole Wheat Flour Bread should be made in every particular like patent or new process flour bread, and baked in loaves, twists, or fancy rolls. ”

“ After seven years of investigation the author has worked out the following theory of the strength of wheat flours, which has finally enabled him to devise a method which promises to be both accurate and rapid, and to require so little flour that it can readily be used by the wheat breeder to determine the strength of the grain in a single ear. It has already been mentioned that a strong wheat is one that will make a large loaf of good shape and texture. The strength of a wheat may therefore be defined as the power of making a large loaf of good shape and texture. ”

“ Wheat is milled for converting into flour by processes producing essentially the same results, all requiring cleansing, grinding, and bolting. Entire wheat flour has only the outer husk removed, the remainder of the kernel being finely ground. Graham flour, confounded with entire wheat, is too often found to be an inferior flour, mixed with coarse bran. ”

“ A standard wheat should be hardy, strong in the straw; not easy to shell and waste, prolific, thin in the bran, white in flour, and the flour rich in starch and gluten. The earliness or lateness of a variety affects its liability to disease.
Much may be done by every farmer to secure a variety suited to his soil from his own fields. Let a watchful eye observe every remarkable head of wheat—a very early one, a very long head, any which have an unusual sized grain, or is distinguished for any excellent property. ”

“ Whole wheat flour, entire wheat flour, improperly so called, is fine wheat meal from which a part of the bran has been removed.
Gluten flour is the product made from flour by the removal of starch, and contains not less than five and six-tenths (5.6) percent of nitrogen and not more than ten (10) percent of moisture.
Age of Flour. —The freshly ground flour is most highly esteemed by many consumers on account of palatability and freedom from all danger of mold and ferments. Older flours are likely to lose flavor, become moldy and infested with weavil and other insect pests. ”

“ The principal physical characteristics of wheat flour of good quality are the following—it has a dull white colour, somewhat inclining to yellow;—it exhibits no trace of bran, even when pressed smooth with the hand,748 or with a polished surface;—its cohesiveness is so great that, on being squeezed in the hand, the lump is some time before it loses its shape;—it has a homogeneous appearance, and does not lose more than from 6% to 12% by being carefully dried in a stove. ”

“ If ground fine enough to make a good yield a good share of the bran went into the flour, making it dark and specky. If not so finely ground the flour was whiter, but the large percentage of middlings made the yield per bushel ruinously small. These middlings contained the choicest part of the flour producing part of the berry, but owing to the dirt, germ, and other impurities mixed with them, it was impossible to regrind them except for a low grade flour. Merchant milling of spring wheat was impossible wherever the flour came in competition with winter wheat flours. ”

“ Ancient Roman bread. Public bakers. Use of bad flour. Adulterations. Poisonous agents used to disguise them.
Among the materials used for making bread in our country—and, in fact, of all the known productions of the vegetable kingdom in any country, wheat is decidedly the best; and it is a remarkable fact, that wheat comes nearer to man than perhaps any other plant, in its power of becoming adapted to different climates, over a wide extent of the earth’s surface, so that it may almost be said that wherever the human species can flourish, there wheat can be cultivated. ”

“ The red varieties yield the largest amount of grain, but the white the whitest flour.
Wheat is preferred to the other cereal grasses as an article of food on account of its containing a larger quantity of flesh-forming matters. The flour also may be rendered very white by separating it from the husks, or bran, and the fruit is much more easily separated from the chaff than is the case with the other cereals. The proportion of flesh and force-producing to those of force-producers only, is more nearly adjusted to the requirements of the system in wheat than in any other food. ”

“ Probably the wheat which combines the most desirable qualities for flour-making purposes is the red Mediterranean, which has plenty of gluten and a tough bran, though claimed by some to have a little too much coloring matter, while the body of the berry is white. By poor milling a good wheat can be made into flour deficient both in strength and color, and by careful milling a wheat naturally deficient in strength may be made into flour having all the strength there was in the wheat originally and of good color. Good milling is indispensable, no matter what the quality of the wheat may be. ”

“ It is of less importance in the making of bread than spring, or hard, wheat, but it is the kind that has been grown for centuries and from which the varieties of spring wheat have been cultivated. It is a softer grain than spring wheat, because it contains less gluten and more starch. The flour made from it does not produce so elastic a dough mixture as does that made from the other variety of wheat; consequently, the finished product, such as bread, rolls, etc., is likely to be more tender and more friable, or crumbly. ”

“ All the cereal grains, as millet, rice, maize, rye, barley and oats are utilized more or less by the inhabitants of the countries where these are cultivated, but wheat is the most suited for the purpose of making the best qualities of bread. Wheaten flour contains in slightly varying proportions, according to the kind of wheat from which it is manufactured, starch, gluten—a grey, viscid, elastic, nitrogenous substance, consisting chiefly of vegetable fibrine—sugar, gum, mineral matter and water. ”

“ Grown wheat makes dough that is runny, and cannot be well moulded, or make good bread. This can be discovered only by trial. Smutty wheat makes flour that is very unhealthful.
Flour always should be sifted before using it, to restore the lightness destroyed by packing, as well as to remove impurities. Bread is also more sure to be light, if the flour is heated before wetting. This can be done, by setting the kneading trough aslant before the fire, stirring it a little as it is warming. When bread proves to be bad, examine the yeast, and see also whether the oven bakes properly. ”

“ Those will be made of wheat flour, too. We use more wheat in America than any other kind of food. Everyone who lives here eats a barrel of flour every year. That is about ninety million barrels. It takes nearly five bushels of wheat to make a barrel of white flour. Four hundred and fifty million bushels of wheat! Yes, indeed! But we really grow about seven hundred million bushels. We have a great deal of wheat and flour to sell to countries across the ocean, where they cannot grow enough to feed all the people. Wheat is the bread of all white people. ”

“ Machinery has been perfected for the milling of wheat so that the digestible portions are separated from the indigestible and a superior human food prepared. Wheat flour stands supreme among the cereal flours and it is likely to maintain this position, still it is undoubtedly in the development of industrial processes that we shall find the solution of the problem of economically converting corn and similar products into human food which will be palatable and nourishing. A good beginning has already been made in the manufacture of starch and glucose as well as breakfast flakes from corn. ”

“ Very few millers trouble themselves to make a perfect whole wheat flour. I know but one establishment in the world where wheat and other grains are treated precisely as they should be, with all the harmful part removed and the rest made digestible by harmless methods, and that is the Health Food Company of New York. [1]
[1] See Appendix, page 30.
Bread leavened, or unleavened, made out of what is called the Cold Blast Whole Wheat Flour, makes more muscle and furnishes more food for the nerves than any other article of [Pg 21] food given to man except the pure gluten of wheat. ”

“ With us, wheat is chiefly employed for the fabrication of bread. It is, in fact, the only grain of which light porous bread can be made; but rye and barley are also used as bread-corn. The farina of the other cerealia afford also a nutritive and wholesome bread; though their flour is not so susceptible of the panary fermentation, it cannot be made into the white texture of the wheaten loaf. The bread formed from them is consequently much inferior to that prepared from wheat. ”

“ The last-named evils are avoided by the use of wheat containing no fungus, none of the eggs of the weavil, nor of other insects, and enclosing the freshly ground flour in packages not accessible to infection. Even then it is advisable to consume the flour as soon as convenient after the milling process. Many manufacturers and experts contend that flour is improved by keeping for a certain length of time, and this contention is based on the assumption that the flour assumes a lighter color and improves in flavor on keeping. ”

“ Entire wheat flour differs from ordinary flour inasmuch as it contains all the gluten found in wheat, the outer husk of kernels only being removed, the remainder ground to different degrees of fineness and left unbolted. ”

“ For the American Agriculturist.
HINTS ON THE CULTIVATION OF WHEAT. Buffalo, October 25th, 1843.
There are four conditions that modify the value of a wheat crop. One may not only be larger in measure than another, but heavier for the same measure; yielding more flour from a given weight; and lastly, affording a greater proportion of gluten from the same quantity of flour. It is necessary for the farmer to have each of these considerations in view, if he would attain the utmost success in the cultivation of this invaluable grain. ”

“ The Food Administration, therefore, has considered that the most effective use of our wheat could be obtained by forbidding the manufacture of fancy flours of low extraction and making all flour contain at least 74 per cent of the wheat. ”

“ Without proper cooking they are unpalatable and unwholesome, and they are not so easy to cook as wheat. They take a longer time and we cannot get the same culinary effects, since with the exception of rye they will not make a light loaf. Fortunately we are not asked to deny ourselves wheat entirely, only to substitute other cereals for part of it. Let each housewife resolve when next she buys flour to buy at the same time one-fourth as much of some other grain, finely ground, rye, corn, barley, according to preference, and mix the two thoroughly at once. ”

“ A wheat which has an abundance of starch, but is poor in gluten, cannot make a strong flour. This is the trouble with all soft wheats, both winter and spring. A wheat which is rich in gluten is hard, and in the case of our hard Minnesota wheat has a very tender bran. It is comparatively easy to make a strong flour, but it requires very careful milling to make a flour of good color from it. ”

“ The color of bread made from wheat flour varies with the kind of wheat used in making the flour and also with the grade of flour used in making the bread. All wheats contain minute quantities of a yellow coloring matter, consequently a fresh, well-milled unbleached patent flour has a live, bright, yellow tint. ”

“ Wheat varies in weight per bushel as the season is wet or dry. The best is round, plump and smooth. It contains about fifteen parts of water, sixty-five to seventy-five parts of starch, and about ten parts of gluten. The average annual production of wheat in the United States during the past eight years has been 448,815,699 11bushels; an increase over the preceding ten years of forty-four per cent., while the increase of population has been only twenty-five per cent.
Wheaten Flour. Wheat was formerly ground by mill stones, and the product bolted and sifted into the different grades. ”

“ Flour or meal produced from barley, maize, or rice, cannot be employed satisfactorily for the manufacture of bread unless a considerable portion of wheat flour is added, and in countries where these grains are the staple food of the people they are as often eaten as porridge or mash as in the form of bread.
On examining a grain of corn from any of the numerous cereals used in the preparation of flour, such as wheat, rye, barley, etc., it will be found to consist of the husk, or exterior covering, which is generally of a dark colour, and the inner part, which is more or less white. ”

“ Unfortunately not all flour of good colour is sound for bread-making purposes. Wheat which has been harvested in a damp condition, or has been thoroughly soaked, by drenching showers previous to cutting, or has got wet in the stook, is liable, unless carefully handled, to produce flour Damp and flour. that will only bake flat, sodden loaves. Wheat which has received too much rain as it is approaching maturity, and has then been exposed to strong sunlight, is peculiarly liable to sprout. ”