FLOUR MILLING

Last week end I was fortunate to be included in a visit , organised by the Midland Highland Cattle Association, to Heygates Flour Mill in Bugbrook near Northampton. This is still run as a family firm and our welcome by the family and staff was superb.


Fascinating experience , especially since my father was supplied with  Heygates  flour over 50 years ago and Paul Heygate,  who incidentally can take you on a national tour of Britain, bakery by  bakery, old and new, could remember.
Follow the link for a bit of history and to see some of the transport used at that time.
http://www.heygates.co.uk/history.html


Compared with now

My father was rather keen to join us, however at the tender age of 91, and although he is still remarkably fit and able, decided that a factory tour was a little beyond  his capability. So like you will only have pictures.


The mill is huge, having been extended many times in its lifetime , each extension and new mill becoming less dependent upon the flour miller because now every thing is mechanised and run by computers. Needless to say the 1940's equipment is no longer used!

Redundant 40's roller mill made from wood with a series of belt driven wheels 

The grain arrives by lorry and is randomly sampled and the sample tested. Within a few minutes the quality of the grain is determined and and allocated  to the appropriate "bin" to begin the process of becoming flour. Several "bins" will be blended together depending on the type of flour required.

70's automated equipment still in operation.

Completely computerised

Each batch of grain is mixed together and then passes through a series of rollers to break the grain. 

Broken grain

The  broken grain is passed through mechanical sieves and progressively closer rollers, 

 sieving each time to separate the grain into its required components. 

The end products are then either used in the mill for animal feed, loaded for bulk transportation to fill bakery silos or bagged and palletised for smaller bakeries and supermarket shelves.

Folding the top and sewing the bag

Mechanisation of flour milling on roller mills has been necessary in order to produce the quantities necessary to feed ourselves. 
and provide a product  which is repeatedly consistent for bulk baking.


In the fifties and sixties bread flour relied upon the Canadian Spring wheat and so 80% of lour used was imported. Now , as a result of the ability to test the quality of the grain that arrives on site Heygates are able to use slightly over 80% of British Wheat. Some UK flour mills will only produce one type of flour and therefore can only accept a certain quality of grain.


For those who like a few stats;


Heygates own mills at Bugbrook, Tring and Downham and trade as Fine Lady Bakery.


They produce 6,500 MT of flour per week.


1 tonne of flour equates to about 1780 loaves  
their flour production will provide 4 million loaves per week.
http://www.heygates.co.uk/flourhome.html


I'm off to Mapledurham Watermill next the only working watermill on the River Thames.

Making Bread At Home

"THE KIT"

Making your own bread is certainly less expensive than buying from a “Real Bread Bakery” In fact probably for half the cost of a mass produced non- organic loaf from the supermarket you will be able to bake a couple of decent sized loaves yourself. I can assure you it will be fabulous bread even if not quite up to the mark on your first attempt. You will want to bake more and more and be very reluctant to purchase processed bread ever again

My first loaves of bread were rather reminiscent of a house brick, virtually impossible to chew even the garden birds were not terribly interested, and almost unusable except that it made exceedingly good toast. Don’t despair it CAN be done.

To get started you need to assemble a bit of a baking “kit” which although not essential tends to make life a little easier. As you progress and become more passionate about your bread making you may wish to improve your kit.

In my workshops I provide kit to take home. Sometimes this is included in the price, sometimes at an additional cost. 

Large mixing bowl,

I like to use earthenware, but plastic and stainless steel are fine too.

Weighing Scales.

I use digital scales which have at least 2kg capacity in 5g or less increments. In reality any scales will do. I will  always test them for accuracy by weighing 1 kilo bag sugar.

Linen Cloths

You can use clean tea towels; however linen is best as it prevents the bread from sticking. Keep your cloths dry as you do not need to ever wash them. Try a fabric shop and purchase a metre of linen fabric or buy a couple of linen tea towels.

Dough Scraper

Scottish Dough Scraper

This is an essential I cannot manage without! It becomes an extension of my right hand, for mixing, scraping and cutting dough.

Baking Stone and Loaf Tins

The best way to bake bread is on a hot stone, for this you can find an off cut of granite work top, a paving slab or an upturned or rimless baking tray. 

I often use a terracotta pizza plate.

Alternatively you can use a loaf or cake tin . The heavier ones will give the best results.

Water Spray Bottle

Ideal for spraying bread before it goes into the oven and to mist the oven to create a little steam whilst baking. Alternatively you can use new 2.5cm paint brushes to brush water on the bread and put about 6 ice cubes into a baking tray on the bottom of the oven.

A Peel

A peel is used to pull bread in and out of the oven. If you start with bread tins you don’t really need one, however for baking baguettes, batches etc it is rather useful. I started by using either a completely flat baking tray or a thin plastic pliable chopping board.

Machines and Mixers

I frequently use a food mixer fitted with a dough hook to mix my bread, but also my bread maker machine on the dough cycle only. Someone recently asked why I did this.

When you only have one pair of hands, it is useful to allow the machines to do some of the work for you, so whilst I am mixing one batch of dough by hand I have machines mixing other batches of dough.  The mixing is important but the moulding and shaping of the bread gives the bread its strength and structure. This means that I can speed up the process use my hands to mould the machine made bread then be able to use my and use my oven time more efficiently and bake a variety of different breads in the same session.

The method, good ingredients, and slow fermentation process remain the same.

When choosing a bread machine make sure it has a dough only option. Remember too that a large capacity maker can handle a smaller loaf. A small capacity machine cannot handle a larger one.

Proving Baskets

Very nice to have since they "hold"  the softer breads in place whilst the prove and rise. This ensures that you don't get a loaf looking rather like a pancake They come in different shapes and sizes and often have optional liners. The  liners are used when cooking strongly flavoured breads so that the flavours do not transfer to the baskets which again are not usually washed.

Is It Better To Make Your Own Real Fresh Bread?

The typical ingredients of many shop bought loaves can include vinegar, dextrose, soya flour, emulsifier, mono and diacetyle tartaric acid esters of mono and diglycerides of fatty acids (E472e), flour treatment agent E300, ascorbic acid (preservative), calcium propionate an inhibitor of mould growth. Certainly a great deal more than just flour yeast salt and water, which are the typical ingredients of a homemade loaf. If you make your own you no longer have to worry about these additives because you are in control. From a basic parent bread dough it is possible to bake a vast number and types of breads really easily.

You can choose to use higher fibre flours, lower salt, less fat, and no sugar in bread. You can choose to use Organic ingredients or locally produced flour, You can choose Fair-trade ingredients for enriched breads and of course the flavours you like best and those you wish to experiment with...

The majority of industrial loaf production involves the use of artificial additives and often higher quantities of salt, fat, and yeast than required when making your own. Industrial bread production involves a quick production method ( Chorley Wood Method)and it is currently considered that making bread using traditional long fermentation has a variety of health and nutritional benefits. The list of bread is virtually endless and you can achieve a great deal with just a few simple tools the most valuable of which are your own hands. The smell of freshly baking bread evokes memories for most of us, for me my childhood since my father was a member of a family run bakery business and I seem to have inherited that all important "baking" gene which I now am able to share with those who wish to learn. Baking bread is such a sociable experience and there is nothing to equal eating your first home-baked loaf with a good bottle of wine, tea or coffee. We have such fun at our bread workshops.

Bread is a very natural food which we have eaten for centuries; all cultures have their own style of bread, which at the beginning were most likely very dense and unappealing. The art of bread making progressed slowly being mostly a family task in the villages and countryside. Communal ovens were eventually introduced, where the baker would bake the bread brought to him for a small fee. As our taste has become more sophisticated so have the bread types we eat and enjoy today. There are over 200 varieties available in Britain today.The sooner you begin the sooner you will produce the best bread in the world YOUR BREAD