BREAD 483 



and water only, the fatty matter acting to prevent the escape of gas from the dough. 

 Other matters will operate in a similar manner boiled flour, for instance, added in 

 small quantities. But the assumption that light bread is only half aeriform matter is 

 altogether erroneous. Never before has there been so complete a method of testing 

 what proportion the aeriform bears to the solid in light bread as that which my pro- 

 cess affords. The mixing vessel at Messrs. Carr and Co.'s works, Carlisle, has an 

 internal capacity of ten bushels. When 3 bushels of flour are put into this vessel, 

 and formed into spongy bread dough, by my process, it is quite full. And when flour 

 is mixed with water into paste, the paste measures rather less than half the bulk of 

 the original dry flour. This will, therefore, represent about If bushel of solid matter 

 expanded into 10 bushels of spongy dough, showing in the dough nearly 5 parts aeri- 

 form to 1 solid ; and in all instances, if the baking of this dough has not been accom- 

 plished so as to secure the loaves to ' spring ' to at least double their size in the oven, 

 they have always come out heavy bread when compared with the ordinary fermented 

 loaves. This gives the relative proportion of aeriform to solid in light bread at least 

 as 10 to 1, and at once raises the loss by fermentation from 1 to 10 per cent., without 

 taking into account the loss of gas by its passage through the mass of dough. 



' Of the quality and properties of the bread manufactured by my process, there will 

 shortly be ample means of judging. I may be allowed, however, here to state, what 

 will be evident to all, that the absence of everything but flour, water, and salt, must 

 render it absolutely pure ; that its sweetness cannot be equalled, except by bread to 

 which sweet materials are superadded ; that, unlike all other unfermented bread, it 

 makes excellent toast ; and, on account of its high absorbent power, it makes the 

 most delicious sop puddings, &c., and also excellent poultice. Sop pudding and poul- 

 tice made from this bread, however, differ somewhat from those made from fermented 

 bread, in being somewhat richer or more glutinous. This arises from the fact of the 

 gluten not having been changed, or rendered soluble, in the manner caused by fer- 

 mentation ; but that this is a good quality rather than a bad one is evident from the 

 fact, that the richer and purer fermented bread is, the more glutinous are the sop, &c., 

 made from it ; and the poorer and more adulterated with alum it is, the freer the sop, 

 &c., are of this quality.' 



Such then is Dr. Dauglish's plan ; and it is impossible to deny that it possesses 

 great ingenuity. 



From the fact that, in all his experiments at Carlisle, Dr. Dauglish invariably made 

 118 loaves from the same weight of flour which, by fermentation, made only 105 or 

 106, to argue that the gain over fermentation can only be equal to the loss by fermenta- 

 tion, is to draw a somewhat hasty conclusion ; for the gain may be, and is probably 

 due, not to the preservation in the bread of what is generally lost by fermentation, 

 but simply to a retention of water. 



It is of course certain that the production of the porosity required in bread pro- 

 duced by the carbonic acid and alcohol evolved by fermentation, entails the loss of a 

 portion of the valuable constituents of the flour, but the amount of that loss should 

 not be estimated, I think, from the proportions which the aeriform bear to the solid 

 matter of the loaf after it is baked. 



In effect, the fermentation induced in bread differs from that produced at the dis- 

 tillery, in as much as, instead of the fermenting material being sheltered from the air 

 by an atmosphere of carbonic acid, the dough is on the contrary thoroughly permeated 

 by, and retains a considerable quantity of atmospheric air introduced into it by the 

 kneading process, and owing to the presence of which, in fact, the acetous fermentation 

 is carried on to a certain extent, within the dough, simultaneously with the alcoholic 

 fermentations, so that even the 10 parts of aeriform matter to 1 of solid matter in a 

 quartern loaf, are not altogether carbonic acid resulting from the fermentation, but 

 are carbonic acid from that source mixed with the atmospheric air with which the 

 dough is permeated. On the other hand, the aeriform matter thus imprisoned in the 

 dough, expands to at least twice its volume when exposed to the temperature of the 

 oven, and accordingly the bread after breaking becomes as bulky again as the dough 

 from which it was made, and this doubling of the volume being due to the expansion 

 of the gases, and not to the fermentation, bears no proportion whatever to the amount 

 of the sugar of the flour employed in the production of the alcohol and carbonic acid 

 evolved. Moreover, as a quartern loaf, for example, measures about 9 inches by 

 6'5 inches by 5 inches, making a total of about 292 cubic inches, if we take nine-tenths 

 of that to be aeriform matter, we have 262'8 inches as the aeriform cubic contents 

 of the quartern loaf. 



It is ascertained beyond doubt by numerous experiments, that genuine, properly 

 manufactured new bread contains, on an average, 42'5 per cent, of water, and 57'5 of 

 flour, and consequently a quartern loaf weighing really four pounds, would consist of 

 11,900 grains of water and 16,000 grains of solid matter, 422-5 grains of which aro 



