The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-01-19
ideas For GWnauen.

How do you folks take a barrel of
cheap hour and turn 1t into loaves of
fine white bread?" l asked the Boss
Baker.
I'VE DON'T he replied. Cheap Hour
makes cheap bread. We a " no way
OF making good bread out of poor -four.
To make the best bread the best flour
in the market is none too good for u.s.
Then" / asked, ""do you mean that
you use the same flour for our profess
sional bread as a housewife uses for
homemade loaves?"
Not always precisely the same" he
replied, 'sbut our flour costs as much
as hers. sometimes more. We generally
use the best Minnesota or other Western
f1ours, the most expensive in the market,
because they suit our purposes best, be-
ing either all spring wheat or what we
call straight a mixture of winter and
spring. For homie baking pure winter
wheat is the whitest and best"
Now said I. as he was warming up
to the subject, the leavcn OF information
beginning to work In him. mo housekeep-
er can look at a bag y flour and tell
whether it is made of winter wheat or
spring wheat. Can you?ss
why notT. said he. ST car show you
in half a minute how you can tell for
yourself. Look at this" He thrust his
hand into an open barrel of -four and
brought out a handful.
Now 1 squeeze this, and the minute /
open my hand the cast of my fingers
erumbles. Their is no ~tenacity to it. 1t
is almost as loose and crumbly as corn
meal. q shows it is spring wheat"
~Hera js Wvtptar wbnof na <1otr
handful from another barrel. "You see
when I squeeze it into any form with my
hand 1t retains the form. I could 20
all over the house with it, or around the
block. M it would not crumble. That
shows that it is winter wheat. The
housekeeper always makes better bread
by using winter wheat"
Il understand" I told him, sthat bak-
ing bread in the large cities is not only
a hne art, but a very profitable business.
! want to know all about it."
AT the word 'profitable"@ he shrugged
his shoulders and shook his head sadly.
Let us begin with a barrel of -four"
! suggested. How many loayes of bread
can you make out of a barrel of four?.
We don't reckon by ~loaves, but by
pounds. of bread. A loaf may be the
size of a roll, or of a bushel basket. but
a pound is a pound. When I went to the
dealer from whom j have. been buying
my Hour ever since, the first thing he
asked me was:-
How many Wounds Of bread do you
r~eckonDsyou will get out of a barrel of
fiour?'
Two hundred and eighty said I.
That's right said he; that's )ust
#nat you win get. Some bakers reckon
on SOY, but they come out behind"
linen, ! suggested. .'you Increase the
"eisnt OF your flower by just about so
per cent, as a barrel of -four weighs 1876
POUNDS. What do you add to it?"
Water" he replied, "and leaven and
shortening. It is the water. of course,
anat increases the weight. The heaven in
creases the bulk. If o want a big loaf
for one cent less than the price of a small
one, can give it to you by swelling the
loaf out with yeast. That Is done some
times. but it hurts the bread, and does
not increase the weight.
The shortening" he continued. as
about three pounds of the best beef lard
to a barrel Of -four. The leayen is COM
pressed yeast. Nothing goes into a loaf
OF bread but these four things-hour. wa
ter, lard and leaveaA We use nothing but
compressed yeast, because It is Just as
good and much handler
And then?"
Then We set the sponge and bake the
bread, and it's done In such a shop as
this, where we bake about thirty barrels
a week, the sponge is made very much as
It is done In a private house, all by hand.
In the very large bakeries, where some
of them bake 100 barrels of -four a day.
the kneading is done with a machine,
which makes 1t cheaper. But when it
comes to The baking We are all alike 1t
is the old brick oven, Just as it always
was"
There is no oyen for a bread baker but
the old-fash1oned arched brick oven. The
largest OF these are about 1ox11 or Joke
them.
7 bake ten barrels OF -four a week."
he aid,s"requires three men at least. They
are a foreman, second hand and third
hand They all nave to be bearded on the
premises, and besides board the foreman
gets $12 q week. the second hand 81 and
the third hand Sc. In wInter prices are a
little lower, because 80 many men want
work In summer they go away to water
ing places. like the cooks, walters and
others.
I'm general they work about twelve
hours a day. beginning at six In the even
ing and ending at six in the morning. We
can have NO exact hours in this business,
n there is no piece work. The sponge
must he set and then II musf rise. The