results of the Panary Fermentation. 



the integrity of the flour was preserved, and that the elements 

 of the common salt required as a seasoner of the bread, were 

 thus introduced and the salt formed in the dough. Dr. Hugh 

 Colquhoun first, it is believed, carried this suggestion into 

 practice, in 1826, and made numerous experiments on bread- 

 making*. But it was not till within a very few years that the 

 idea of using bread thus baked on a large scale was carried 

 into execution. From the result of several experiments made 

 at the author's request, it appears that upon an average there 

 is a great loss sustained by flour when it is fermented. In 

 comparison with the bread raised by carbonate of soda and 

 muriatic acid, there is a loss in the sack of flour of 30lbs. 

 13oz. ; or in round numbers a sack of flour would produce 

 107 loaves of unfermented bread, and only 100 of fermented 

 bread of the same weight. Hence it appears that, by the com- 

 mon process of fermented baking, in the sack of flour, 7 loaves, 

 or 6^ per cent, of the flour, are driven into the air and lostf. 

 An important question now arises from the consideration of 

 the result of this experiment, viz. does the loss arise entirely 

 from the decomposition of sugar, or is any other element of 

 the flour attacked ? 



It appears from a mean of 8 analyses of wheat flour from 

 different parts of Europe by Vauquelin, that the quantity of 

 sugar contained in flour amounts to 5*61 per cent. But it is 

 obvious that as the quantity lost by baking exceeded this 

 amount by nearly 1 per cent., the loss cannot be accounted 

 for by the removal merely of the ready-formed sugar of the 

 flour. We must either ascribe this extra loss to a conversion 

 of a portion of the gum of the flour into sugar and its decom- 

 position by means of the ferment, or we must attribute it to 

 the action of the yeast upon another element of the flour; and 

 if we admit that yeast is generated during the panary fermen- 

 tation, then the conclusion would be inevitable that another 

 element of the flour, besides the sugar or gum, has been affected. 

 For Liebig has well illustrated the fact, that when yeast is 

 added to wort, ferment is formed at the expense of the gluten, 

 while the sugar is decomposed into alcohol and carbonic acid. 

 Now in the panary fermentation, which is precisely similar to 

 the fermentation of wort, we might naturally expect that the 

 gluten of the flour would be attacked to reproduce yeast. 



* Annals of Philosophy, N.S., vol. xii. 



f In consequence of these and other facts brought forward by the au- 

 thor, the unfermented system of baking has been introduced into many of 

 the unions in England, where he believes it has been found that he has not 

 overrated the saving, which the above experiments would indicate to be 

 upwards of a fifteenth. 



Y2 



