New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1915-07-07
BIG MILLS INSTALL
CHEMICAL "LAB"
SCIENCE AND SKILL UNITE IN
MAKING PERFECT MILL
PRODUCTS.
WONDERFULLY COMPLICATED
TESTS MADE IN NEW
LABORATORY.

If you are laboring under the impress
sion that flour milling is just matter
Of getting wheat from any old place
you can buy it, dumping it into set of
rollers and grinding it and then naming
it after some noted statesman and
charging fancy price for the finished
product, you had better take peep at
the new chemical laboratory just in
stalled by the Eagle Milling Company.
The elaborate tests on all stages of the
milling process from the whole wheat
to the finished -four will speedily con-
vince you that milling is not an industry
for the novice to plunge into.
The testing of the mill products is by
no means new thing at the Eagle Mills
but not until recently has the company
been so thoroly equipped to make the
elaborate tests that are now made. The
little four room cottage near the mill
formerly used as a dwelling has been
remodeled and fitted up into a chemical
laboratory that would delight the heart
of any professor of chemistry. Every
facility for making accurate, scientific
investigation is at hand and even the
excellent lighting facilities have been
EXCHANGED by careful choice of wall
tints to aid in the reflection of the light.
The walls were first painted fiat white
and then enameled so that every bit of
the light that comes into the light airy
rooms is used to the best advantage.
The laboratory is presided over by
Mr.. G. H. Schmidt who has been making
long and careful preparation for the
work. Four years Of Analytical Chemis-
try at Minnesota University and gradu-
ate work at Chicago is what is necessary
to be scientific miller. And aiding
Mr.. Schmidt in producing absolutely
perfect flour for absolutely perfect bread
is Miss Gleason who after course of
eighteen years in making bread can
prepare a loaf fit for the table of an
epicure. Such in brief is the scientific
corps of the Eagle Mills.
In the big upper room of the laboratory
is an experimental mill where the grain
is first ground under the most favorable
conditions. The little mill shows in
miniature what is going on day and
night in the roar of the big mill in the
background. A little eight horse power
motor runs the machinery which washes
the wheat, runs it thru the breaks where
the bran is removed, sits out the bran
and middlings and runs it on thru the
many smooth rollers that slowly grind
the coarse flour to Daniel Webster
smoothness and fineness.
Passing down stairs to the laboratory
proper, the first thing that one notices
among the spick and span array of
apparatus in the scrupulously neat room
is the clever device for ascertaining the
amount of moisture in grain. The grain
to be tested is first placed in a glass
flask, covered with oil and subjected to
an intense heat of 400 degrees Farenheit.
The moisture is thus driven off in the
form of steam and passing up thru glass
tubes is condensed again and caught
in a graduate below. By comparing
the amount of water obtained with the
original weight of the wheat the actual
water contained in the grain is easily
ascertained. The purpose of this test
is to aid in the grinding of the wheat
There must be a certain quantity OF
water in the grain when it is ground to
secure the best results. If there is too
little moisture, the bran of wheat will
break up into too fine pieces and will be
hard to separate from the flour. There
must be about fourteen per cent OF
moisture in the wheat for the best results
in grinding.
When the flour is made the actual
tests commence. There is not a dark
secret in it's whole history that is not
brought to light in this searching series
of chemical tests. If Daniel Webster
had been forced to endure half the tests
that the flour bearing his name is sub
jected to he would have had to spend
half his life on the witness stand of the
congressional investigations and bis
Bunker Hill address would have been
analysed and graded as to hot air, brain
food, water and foreign substance.
The amount Of water in the flour, the
proteid element, the facts, and the
crude fiber or waste all are determined
in a strictly scientific manner. To q
finished chemist the methods that Mr..
Schmidt carefully explained to the dazed