From: arnie@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Arnie Skurow)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Grape Nuts FURTHER defined
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:05:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: magnus.CMM.0.90.4.722102721.arnie
Organization: The Ohio State University

I used to work for the Post Cereal Division of General Foods Corp and
had responsibilities in the buildings that produced Post Toasties, Postum
beverage and Grape Nuts.

Grape Nuts cereal starts its life as a loaf of multigrain bread.  A dough
of many grains, including the bran outer coat of the grain, is mixed with
yeasts, water, sugars, salt and other flavorings.  The dough is proofed
(risen), knocked down and then proofed again.  After the second knockdown
the dough is metered through a metering/cutting device into ~2 pound loaf
pans that look like any quality bread pan one would use at home.  As I can
remember, the pans had a non-stick surface similar to the baking magic
pans one can purchase.

The pans containing the loaves of dough travel through a travelling oven
made of brick and firebrick.  The heat source was natural gas.  Again,
as I can recollect, the ovens were nearly 100 feet long, from entrance to
exit.  The first xxx feet were a warming area so the loaves could rise.
The next xxx feet were the baking area and the next and final xxx feet
were the cooling area.  

At the end of the oven the loaves slid down a ramp in their pans and the
pans were upended, dumping their individual loaves onto a conveyor belt
that took the loaves upstairs to the production/packing area.  After the
loaves were semi-cooled they were broken into 2 to 3 inch chunks and further
cooled.  These 2 to 3 inch chunks were then dried in a warm, forced-air
source until the chunks are dried to xx% moisture content, usually 12 to
13%.

These chunks are then further broken up and sieved until the desirable
grape nuts sizes are reached.  These somewhat consistently sized pieces
are packaged.

A couple of anecdotes.

Before I left the plant for the day I'd always sneak over to the 
Grape Nuts oven and snitch a fresh loaf of Grape Nuts bread.  It would be
somewhat hot.  I'd take it home and we'd slice it like bread and 
slather it with butter which would melt in.  It's one of the best multi-
grained breads I've ever eaten.  It has a very short shelf life because
of the original dough mixture being rather stiff and dry.  It would keep
in the fridge for several days though and would toast well.

One of our employee's wives used to roll out and crush the grape nuts
cereal, season it and coat food with it.  She'd bake the food in the
oven with excellent results.

He suggested the idea to our plant Q.C. people who further passed it
up the line that the "fines" (small particles which slipped through 
the sieves and were too small to meet Q.C. standards for packaging)
were excellent breading for chicken, pork chops, etc.

This was the birth of Shake and Bake.  Normally fines were conveyed to
large stainless steel tanks and were shipped out as animal feed or to
one of our dog food plants to be used in making dog food.  A new use
for these fines went into the Shake and Bake project and captured 
considerable profit from the use of fines as another General Foods
product.

Shake and Bake became so popular that they had to run extra shifts to
make enough Grape Nuts bread to make the fines needed for shake and bake.

General Foods built another plant and tried to duplicate the Grape
Nuts process but never succeeded with it.  They could never replicate
the taste.  All processes were the same, yet the taste could never be
replicated.

The problem was the ovens were newer, more modern ovens.  The original
ovens that were in the Battle Creek plant had actually taken on such 
characteristics after years and years of use that they actually 
influenced the flavor of the foods being baked in them.  Conceivably,
Grape Nuts produced in the original ovens should continue to improve in
flavor with each year the ovens are used.


Arnie Skurow
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking