Annual Report of the Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture (Volume 5, 1871-1872)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 edition. Excerpt: ... the present century. A pair of millstones, the upper and the nether, with a single bolt, were used for many generations, and driven by wind, water, or horse power. In the early part of the present century improvements in milling began to be made both in Europe and the United States. There is not time even to sketch these wonderful improvements made within the last half of the present century, and besides, if there were, it would be quite impossible to describe here the numerous operations, including grinding, re-grinding, and sifting, which the grain now undergoes in the high milling process. The flour thus produced is less in quantity and less nutritious, though finer and whiter than that from the former methods. The following is a classified list by Prof. Church of the chief products of an improved flour-mill, with the average quantities of each product obtained from 100 lbs. of good white wheat: Flour. 1. Finest flour, ----42 lbs. 2. Seconds flour, ---18 3. Biscuit flour, ---9 4. Tails or tailings, ---3 u 5. Middlings or fine shorts, --8 Bran. 6. Coarse sharps, ... 8 lbs. 7. Fine pollard, ---3 8. Coarse pollard, ---6 9. Long bran, ---8 These several quantities are estimates, and the names given may vary in different mills, whether at home or abroad. The first three kinds or qualities of flour are often mixed and sold as fine flour, and the quantity of this product is further raised or increased to 80 per cent. of the wheat taken by redressing the tailings and re-grinding the middlings, which form a link between flour and bran. In some flouring mills only three kinds or degrees of fineness are made, namely, flour, middlings, and bran. Bran is not only richer in fibrin and mineral matter than fine flour, ...