68 



Baking Qualities of Flour. 



reported to study the influence of environment, the object having 

 been to compare the quality of the various grades of wheat as 

 they appear on the market. It is true that a miller may purchase 

 wheat of a certain grade in one district that may be superior to 

 that grown in another ; but the great bulk of the wheat passes 

 through the large elevators, in which wheat from many districts, 

 grown under a great variety of conditions, is mixed together, so 

 that the characteristics peculiar to localities are lost in the general 

 mixture. 



One set of samples, Nos. I., II., and III. Northern, were 

 received direct from Mr. David Horn, Chief Grain Inspector ; 

 they were taken from his mixed samples, but probably these were 

 not gathered from an area wide enough to exclude all the in- 

 fluences of environment. Another set of Nos. I., II., and III. 

 Northern was secured from the elevator at Goderich, Ontario; 

 the samples represent these grades as they actually reach the miller 

 in the 'older provinces or in Great Britain. The samples of Alberta 

 Red and Alberta White were sent from the Grain Inspector's 

 office at Calgary, Alberta. 



As indicated by the weight of 100 kernels, there is not much 

 difference in the size of the kernels of the No. I. Northern re- 

 ceived from Mr. Horn and that of the cargo lots; but there is 

 considerable difference in the Nos. II. and III. grades. The 

 No. III. of the cargo lots is a smaller grain and contains more 

 shrunken grain, which probably accounts for the higher percentage 

 of protein. 



As the only method at present available of determining the 

 relative value of a flour for bread purposes is by actual baking 

 trials, the flours made from the wheats under discussion were 

 baked in our own flour-testing laboratory, which is fully equipped 

 with electric-proof and baking ovens so arranged that we have 

 almost absolute control of the temperature, accurate balances 

 for weighing flour and bread, apparatus for determining the 

 volume of loaf as bread, expansion of glutens, &c. The work was 

 done by a thoroughly competent person, who is constantly at the 

 work and has developed that delicacy of feel which can only be 

 acquired by constant practice. 



In the baking trials 340 grams of flour and sufficient water, salt, 

 sugar, and yeast were used in making each loaf of bread. The 

 yeast is used in what might be considered excessive quantities. 

 The object is to cause the dough to rise as high as possible and 

 thus bring out the strength or at least the expansive power of the 

 flour. 



The following table gives the weight of a loaf of bread from 

 each of the different samples of wheat. The yield of bread was 

 determined as accurately as possible ; while it perhaps does not 

 represent the yield that would be obtained in a large baking, the 



