The morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1899-1930, 1905-03-14
TESTING THE FLOUR
PROCESSES THROUGH WHICH IT IS
PUT IN THE MILL.

turer AnRlyzes HIS Product Before
Ii Ii Placed Upon the Market-Ths
Expert Bread Tasters.
The mysteries Of bread manufacture
belong to the domain Of the housewife.
The rise or full OF the biscuit, while 1t
affects the digestion Of the male frac-
ton Of the household, strikes a deeper,
x not more responsive, chord OF the
feminine nature, FOR, after all, every
woman must regard herself, potentially
at least. as Il good cook, just as mascu.
line character piques itself on the pow.
er to elucldate railroad time table,
OF course In cooking, rs in card play.
ing, the quality of the material Is I'm.
portant. What the player ascribes 10
bad cards the cook equally certainly
lays TO poor tlour. Hence the manufac'
turers Of -four in self defense have
fallen back upon scientific methods for
determining the quality Of their -four.
When Mrs. Brown, indignant at the
failure of her biscuits on three success
sive mornings, eShausts her temper In
an indignant epistle TO the manufac.
turer whose name appears on the head
OF the -four barrel, she is, after all. un-
consciously rendering him valuable
service, for the manufacturer Is seek
ing to provide what Mrs. Brown is In.
sistent on recelylng-namely, good and
pure -four. The process Of accomplish
ing this is exhaustive, and II would
doubtless surprise Mrs Brown TO learn
that when she sifted her hour she was
putting 1t through the one hundred and
fifty.tirst repetition OF this process,
When Mrs Brown sends her complaint,
with her own little theory Of the cause,
her letter, il properly written, will In.
dicate the number Of her package, and.
with this as clew, the manufacturer
will investigate.
To be able to fix upon the exact To-
cation of the difficulty in Il mill turn
ing out thousands and thousands Of
barrels of -four each year requires a
system which can cope with the mag
nitude of the problem, which Is greatly
complicated by the fact that the wheat
is gathered from half dozen states
To do this the great mills all employ
regular stan OF chemists. Every
hour there comes to these chemists
samples of the -four that is being man.
ufactured. This they test and label
and file away in little bottles properly
indexed, When Mrs. Browns com.
plant comes In the chemist goes back
in his index to the sample taken the
hour Mrs. Browns -four was ground
and is able to tell at once just what
kind OF -four the irate woman received
where II came from and what its quail
ity was. He keeps these samples year;
then they give way to new ones.
But this Is merely the reference
phase. To determine the purity OF
their product before 1t goes on the
market the manufacturers have an
elaborate and comprehensive system,
which would doubtless convince Mrs.
Brown of their good faith could she
visit one of the great mills. The
process begins when the wheat comes
in. Samples Of every lot are sent
through Il tiny mill which Is an exact
model Of the great mill, a sort Of sci
entific toy as well as valuable anu
practical machine Here the samples
are ground. Then comes the first
test, which is denominated the gluten
test. The -four Is made into dough
balls, which resemble the biscuits with
which Mrs. Brown had such an unhap.
by experience. These are weighed and
then washed with pure water until the
raising qualities are eliminated. This
takes the starch out Of the dough, a
somewhat complicated result. The
gluten that remains thus indicates the
amount of this property in the wheat.
Then there Is 'doughing test which
consists In making little dough pat
ties, such as children delight in. These
are placed on glass plates, and the ex-
pert determines the quality Of the
wheat by the color of the various pat
ties, while twice day the wheat is
critically analyzed by the regular chem
lists.
But the most interesting Of all the
tests is the bread baking. This process
would be at once the admiration and
despair of any good housekeeper.
Doubtless even the masculine mind
would find charm in the resulting
bread. From samples Of -four the loaves
are made and then consigned to raising
ovens, where the temperature Is kept
even. Before they are put in these oy-
ems the loaves are measured. Next they
go to other ovens, heated by electricity,
and are baked Once baked to an even
brown, they are ruthlessly cut In half
and turned over to the expert tasting
committee, which decides upon their
relative merit, labels them and indi-
Gates the mill from which the -four In
them came and the wheat growing dis
trict which produced them. Not infre-
quently the tasting committee decides
that two brands Of -four must be blend
ed to produce a harmonious loaf, and
this Is done and the baking experiment
repeated. Out Of all this tasting and
blending, weighing and testing, Mrs.
Browns f5ur is finally evolved, cata-