The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1882-03-30
Tho Railing Business.

The baker comes down to us from an
tiquity and has always figured more or
less prominently in sacred and profane
history. Witness the conspicuous part
played by Pbaroahs baker, and the ap-
pearance of the functionary in nursery
lore In connection with the butcher and
the candle.stick maker. The baker and
his cavernous oven belong to many lands
and many ages, but it was reserved for
modern days to transform the industr.-
from an enlargement of the domestic
process into one of the branches of
trade employing labor-saving ma
chinery.
Let us first inspect the cracker de
partment. The cracker is "peculiar
institution" The dough is first pre-.
pared in long troughs. 1t is then put
into "worm," where o device which
resembles a huge corkscrew turns and
twists if, gives it it's final kneading and
forces it into trough, from which it is
passed through rollers and appears in q
long sheet, ready to be cut into crackers,
This work is performed by a cutting
machine, which by sliding the sheet OF
dough on a table under die cuts out
720 crackers minute. These are taken
from the table on fat wooden shove
and deposited in the oven, and the clip.
pings are thrown back into the dough
trough. Gazing in at the mouth of the
oven we see spacious compartment
which we are told measures twenty fee
square and thirty feet deey. 1t is heated
by furnace i'll the basement of the
building.
The oven contains eight shelves, nint
feet long and three feet wide, arranged
on revolving frame and holding two
and half barrels of crackers. Eigh
minutes are required for the baking
and as soon as one shelf is emptied i
is filled again from the cutting table
The baked crackers are conveyed tx
bins in the upper story by an arrange
ment somewhat similar to that by which
grain is elevated. The buckets empt,
the crackers into bin where they ar,
allowed to cool and fall into a recap
tscle beneath, from which they ar,
taken and packed. The packing ma
chine is q curiously contrived device
andl arranges the crackers in rows so a
to greatly facilitate the work of tn,
packer. About thirty-two barrels pc
day is the product of the establishment
of which we speak.
Let us pass to that part of the baker,
where ginger snaps ale made. Long
thin sheets of "snap" dough pass be
meath cutting machine, similar to tina
used for crackers, which punches GU
twelve snaps at stroke or S64 per min
ute The cakes are then passed through
steam and water to give them gloss
appearance, ard are then placed in tn
oven, which has tables revolving hori
zontally. One turn of the tables bake
the thin snaps, and two turns does th
business for the thicker ones. The tim
taken to convert the dough intoa bake
snap is only about five minutes, an
$4,000 snaps per hour, or 800, 600 pc
day is the product
After all, bread is tho most import
ant product of the baker. Here we Sc
revolving crank in an iron troug
mixing ten barrels of -four in eigt
minutes. The bread is given fou
"risiugs," and the weight of each los
is ascertained before it passes 10 th
oven. The number Of loavcs turne
out every day is 3,100. About 90
loGves of brown bread are baked dali,
some cooked by heat Ind some Il
steam, the latter process requiring 81
hour5.