The Composition and Pood ]'ahie of Bread. li' 



inorganic combination. It has a special interest in the case • 

 of bread, for a reason that will appear later. An. experiment 

 on similar lines has recently been carried out at the 

 Experiment Station of the University of Wisconsin by Hart, 

 McCollum, and Fuller, who have shoAvn without doubt that 

 young pigs can make use of inorganic phosphorus compounds. 

 In the preceding pages I have endeavoured to set out an 

 unbiassed account of the feeding value of different kinds of 

 bread, as affected by variations in the composition of the flour, 

 according to the kind of wheat from which it is made and the 

 kind of milling it has undergone. There is still one point to 

 be considered — what is known as strength. This term is very 

 loosely used by the various classes of people interested in wheat 

 to denote the collection of properties which each considers 

 good from his own point of view. The farmer considers a 

 wheat strong if the miller will give a good price for it. The 

 miller calls a wheat strong if it will make a good yield of 

 saleable flour. The baker's criterion of strength is the 

 capacity for baking a large number of saleable loaves per 

 sack. Obviously it is useless to discuss strength in its relation 

 to food value until the term has been defined with some 

 approach to accuracy. Fortunately this has been done by the 

 Home-grown Wheat Committee, who define strength as "the 

 capacity for baking a large well piled loaf." This definition 

 entirely leaves out two points which are of great importance 

 to the baker — capacity for making a dough which is easy to 

 manipulate in large qiiantities, and the power of making a 

 large numl)er of loaves per sack. The former is usually 

 called stability, the latter water absorption. 



In making flour into bread the usual practice is to put a 

 quantity of flour into a large wooden trough, to add the 

 requisite proportion of salt, to stir in the proper amount of 

 yeast mixed with water, and finally to add water a little at a 

 time, working in each addition until all or nearly all the flour 

 is made into dough of the desired consistency. This operation 

 may be carried out in one stage or more frequently in two 

 stages, but in either case it is found that a sack (280 lb.) of 

 any given flour will absorb a certain definite quantity of 

 water in order to make a dough of definite consistency. This 

 quantity is usually expressed in quarts per sack, and it varies 

 from about 52 to 70 quarts per sack. This means that a sack 

 of flour may make anything from 400 lb. to 450 lb. of dough. 

 The amount of dough ordinarily required to bake a 4 lb. loaf 

 is 4 lb. 6 oz. A sack of flour may therefore produce from 92 

 to 103 loaves. Clearly the water absorbing power of a flour 

 is of c(mBiderable importance to the baker. A flour which 

 absorbs 5 per cent, of its own weight of extra water is in fact 



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