FLOUR 



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FLOUR 



flour and whole-wheat Sour are marketed to 

 a considerable extent. The former, named for 

 Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), an American 

 reformer and advocate of vegetarianism, is 

 unsifted wheat meal ground from the entire 

 kernel. Whole-wheat flour contains all of the 

 kernel except the coarser portions of the bran. 

 The bran itself, constituting the outer coats 

 of the wheat kernel, is now being extensively 

 used to give bulk to food, and as a laxative 

 it is Nature's remedy for constipation. Gra- 

 ham and whole-wheat flours compare favorably 

 with white flour in composition; in common 

 with bran, which ranks low in nutritive quali- 

 ties, they are more laxative than fine white 

 flour. Gluten flours, from which nearly all the 

 starch has been eliminated, are considered of 

 value in certain forms of dyspepsia and dia- 

 betes. 



How Flour Is Made. The modern process of 

 flour milling consists in separating the outer 

 bran layers from the inner portion of the wheat 

 kernel by repeated grindings, and in purifying 

 the broken inner portion (the middlings) until 

 a pure white flour is secured. The wheat is 

 carried to the top of the mill in elevators, and 

 then passed through several machines which 

 remove all particles of dirt, weed seeds, chaff 

 and other impurities, and free the kernels from 

 fuzz and hair. If the kernels are too dry and 

 brittle the bran will split up into tiny pieces 

 and spoil the flour during the reduction process, 

 and so it is often necessary to dampen, soak 

 or steam the wheat in order to moisten the 

 outer layer. When these processes are com- 

 pleted the cleaned wheat is again elevated to 

 the top of the mill, weighed there by automatic 

 machinery and then passed through the various 

 grinding machines, or rollers. 



There are usually five sets of rollers, and 

 the passage of the grain through each is known 

 as a break. At one stage of the process the 

 germ of the wheat kernel is removed, for 

 that portion contains fat which is liable to 

 become rancid and spoil the flour if permitted 

 to remain. After the first grinding the crushed 

 wheat is separated into (1) first-break flour, 

 (2) middlings, consisting of portions of the 

 inner part of the kernel and of fine pieces of 

 bran, and (3) bran and unbroken wheat. The 

 unbroken wheat is then passed through the 

 next set of rollers, and after the second break 

 is separated as before into flour, middlings and 

 bran. The middlings from each break are 

 subjected to a purifying process, in bolting, 

 sifting and scalping machines, being gradually 



separated from the bran and other by-products 

 of the wheat, and the purified middlings are 

 finally reduced to a fine white meal, forming 

 the high-grade first-patent flour. 



Portions of fine flour yielded by the various 

 breaks, which are more or less mixed with im- 

 purities, become the red-dog or low-grade flour, 

 and the impure middlings accumulating during 

 the successive grindings form what is known 

 as baker's flour. It is customary, too, to blend 

 the different streams of break flour and mid- 

 dlings flour to form special commercial brands. 

 The finished product is finally fed into a ma- 

 chine which packs it into sacks or barrels. 

 The former hold a half barrel, quarter barrel 

 and eighth barrel, and a barrel contains 196 

 pounds. 



Statistics of the Industry. Minneapolis, 

 Minn., which is in the famous spring-wheat 

 region of the Valley of the Red River of the 

 North, is the most important flour-milling cen- 

 ter in the world, and its Pillsbury "A" Mill, 

 which has a capacity of 15,000 barrels every 

 twenty-four hours, is the largest mill anywhere 

 in operation. The combined capacity of the 

 mills of the city is more than 86,000 barrels a 

 day. Other important centers are Kansas City, 

 Mo., Buffalo, New York, Duluth, Saint Louis, 

 Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, 

 Rochester and Cincinnati. There are in the 

 United States about 7,500 manufacturing estab- 

 lishments which supply the home market and 

 also export flour in large quantities, besides 

 numerous smaller mills (gristmills) which grind 

 wheat, corn and other grain provided by neigh- 

 borhood farms. The value of the annual prod- 

 uct of American flouring mills is about $900,- 

 000,000. The total output is about 107,000,000 

 barrels a year. 



Canada is also an important flour-manufac- 

 turing country, having over 1,140 establish- 

 ments producing flour and gristmill products. 

 The value of the yearly output is about $82,- 

 500,000. The provinces having the largest num- 

 ber of establishments are Ontario and Quebec. 

 Winnipeg, in Manitoba, is one of the leading 

 flour-manufacturing cities of the world; To- 

 ronto, Montreal and Vancouver are other im- 

 portant centers. On the outbreak of the War 

 of the Nations in 1914 Canada sent 1,000,000 

 barrels of flour to Great Britain, a gift that 

 was gratefully received by the British govern- 

 ment. The Dominion export trade amounts 

 to nearly 5,000,000 barrels a year. 



Budapest, Hungary, is the leading European 

 city engaged in the production of flour. The 



