64 



baking is less easy to interpret. It must not be forgotten, moreover, 

 that gluten, so far as can be ascertained, hinders the deposition of 

 starch from its jelly. At any rate, by the addition of extra gluten 

 to flour-dough the resulting bread possesses better keeping qualities, 

 which, from our recent researches (Whymper, R., " The Conditions 

 that Govern Stateness in Bread," Madaren and Sons, Ltd., 1919) in 

 the Army, have been shown to depend chiefly upon the rate of 

 deposition of starch from its solutions with the passage of time. In 

 other words, gluten acts as a protective coUoid to starch in solution. 

 Exception may be taken to such a generalisation as this, on the 

 ground that it is the quality of the gluten that determines whether 

 bread will keep well or quickly become stale. Snyder {U.S. Depi. 

 Agric, Bull., 101, 56, 1901) found that the addition of starch or the 

 addition of gluten, the former up to 20 per cent, of the flour, was 

 without material effect upon the size of the loaf, though the water- 

 absorbing capacity of the starchy flour was reduced. We are of 

 the opinion, however, that the conclusion reached by that worker 

 and by Jago (" The Technology of Bread-Making," 1911, p. 305), that 

 " the character rather than the quantity of the gluten content " 

 governs the quahty of bread, is too far-reaching, since they omitted 

 to consider the keeping quahties of the loaf. Jago's figures for the 

 viscometer readings of a similar experiment are not without interest 

 (Table I.), for, though of a rough order, they give some indication 

 of a previously observed fact, that, in the case of flours of high water- 

 absorbing capacity, tliis power is retained but httle diminished on 

 being reduced to a uniform wet gluten-percentage level by the addition 

 of wheat starch. 



Table I. 



Viscometer Determinations on Mixtures of Flour and Starch. (Jago.) 



