Fort Vancouver
Historic Furnishings Report: Bakery
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APPENDIX:
ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION ON BISCUIT MAKING
The following extracts from early nineteenth century
encyclopaedias were obtained after the main body of this report had been
typed. They merit careful study, since they throw light upon the
equipment required for producing sea biscuits during the era of hand
production.
A. From article on "Biscuit (Sea)" in John Mason Good
and others, Pantologia: A New Cyclopaedia . . . (12 vols.,
London: G. Kearsley, et al., 1813), II, pages not numbered:
. . . The process of biscuit-baking for the British
navy is as follows . . . large lumps of dough, consisting merely of
flour and water, are mixed up together, and as the quantity is so
immense as to preclude by any common process a possibility of kneading
it, a man manages, or, as it is termed, rides a machine which is called
a horse. This machine is a long roller, apparently about four or five
inches in diameter, and about seven or eight feet in length. It has a
play to a certain extension, by means of a staple in the wall, to which
is inserted a kind of eye, making its action like the machine by which
they cut chaff for horses. The lump of dough being placed exactly in the
centre of a raised platform, the man sits upon the end of the machine,
and literally rides up and down throughout its whole circular direction,
till the dough is equally indented; and this is repeated till it is
sufficiently kneaded, at which times, by the different positions of the
lines, large or small circles are described, according as they are near
to or distant from the wall.
The dough in this state is handed over to a second
workman, who slices it with a prodigious knife; and it is then in a
proper state for the use of those bakers who attend the oven. These are
five in number; and their different departments are as well calculated
for expedition and correctness as the making of pins, or other
mechanical employments. On each side of a large table, where the dough
is laid, stands a workman; at a small table near the oven stands
another; a fourth stands by the side of the oven to receive the bread;
and a fifth to supply the peel. By this arrangement the oven is
regularly filled, and the whole exercise performed in as exact time, as
a military evolution. The man on the further side of the large table
moulds the dough, having previously formed it into small pieces, till it
has the appearance of muffins, although rather thinner, and which he
does two together, with each hand; and as fast as he accomplishes this
task, he delivers his work over to the man on the other side of the
table, who stamps them with a docker on both sides with a mark. As he
rids himself of this work, he throws the biscuits on the smaller table
next the oven, where stands the third workman, whose business is merely
to separate the different pieces into two, and place them immediately
under the hand of him who supplies the oven, whose work of throwing, or
rather chucking the bread upon the peel, must be so exact, that if he
looked round for a single moment, it is impossible he should perform it
correctly. The fifth receives the biscuit on the peel, and arranges it
in the oven; in which duty he is so very expert, that though the
different pieces are thrown at the rate of seventy in a minute, the peel
is always disengaged in time to receive them separately.
As the oven stands open during the whole time of
filling it, the biscuits first thrown in would be first baked, were
there not some counteraction to such an inconvenience. The remedy lies
in the ingenuity of the man who forms the pieces of dough, and who, by
imperceptible degrees, proportionably diminishes their size till the
loss of that time, which is taken up during the filling of the oven, has
no more effect to the disadvantage of one of the biscuits than to
another.
So much critical exactness and neat activity occur in
the exercise of this labour, that it is difficult to decide whether the
palm of excellence is due to the moulder, the marker, the splitter, the
chucker, or the depositor; all of them, like the wheels of a machine,
seeming to be activated by the same principle. The business is to
deposit in the oven seventy biscuits in a minute; and this is
accomplished with the regularity of a clock; the clack of the peel,
during its motion in the oven, operating like a pendulum.
This same article, evidently word for word, is to be
found in William Nicholson, The British Encyclopedia, a Dictionary of
Arts and Sciences . . . (6 vols., London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and
Oreme, 1809), I, article on "Biscuit, sea." It is thus evident that the
process described by Good was in use at least as early as 1809. Under
this method the biscuits, upon being removed from the oven, were placed
in drying lofts over the ovens until considered dry enough to be packed
in bags of a hundredweight each and sent into storehouses. The ovens of
the victualing office at Plymouth were heated 20 times a day.
B. From article on "Baker" in G. Gregory, A New
and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences . . . (1st American
ed., 3 vols., Philadelphia: Isaac Peirce, 1316), I, pages not
numbered.
The process of biscuit baking, as practiced at the
victualling office at Deptford, is curious and interesting. The dough,
which consists of flour and water only, is worked by a large machine. It
is then handed over to a second workman, who slices it with a large
knife for the bakers, of whom there are five. The first, or the
moulder, forms the biscuits two at a time; the second, or the
marker, stamps and throws them to the splitter, who
separates the two pieces, and puts them under the hand of the
chucker, the man that supplies the oven, whose work of throwing
the bread on the peel must be so exact, that he cannot look off for a
moment. The fifth, or the depositor, receives the biscuits on the
peel and arranges them in the oven. All the men work with the greatest
exactness, and are, in truth, like parts of the same machine. The
business is to deposit in the oven seventy biscuits a minute . . . .
C. From article on "Biscuitemaking" in The
Edinburgh Encyclopaedia . . . (1st American ed., 18 vols.,
Philadelphia: Joseph and Edward Parks, 1832), III, 520.
As the process of making biscuits for the navy is
rather curious, we shall endeavour to lay before our readers a very
short account of it. After the meal and water are combined into large
lumps of dough, it is kneaded by means of a machine, which consists of a
roller, about six inches in diameter, and seven feet long. One of its
extremities is fixed into the wall, so as to have a certain degree of
play, while a man rides, as it were, on its other end. The lump of dough
is then placed below it, and the man puts the roller into action, till
the dough is sufficiently kneaded. In this state it is given to a second
workman, who slices it with a large knife, for the use of the bakers who
attend the oven. The rest of the process is effected by four [sic]
workmen, two of whom take their station, each at the end of a large
table that holds the dough; the third stands at a small table near the
oven; the fourth stands at the oven, and the fifth supplies the peel.
The dough is then moulded into something like muffins by the person on
the farther side of the larger table. He then throws them to the man at
the other end of the table, who puts the proper stamp upon them, and
throws them upon the small table, where the third workman separates the
different pieces into two, and places them under the hand of the fourth
baker, who throws the bread upon the peel. The fifth workman recives the
biscuits on the peel, and arranges them in the oven. All these
successive operations are performed with such activity and exactness,
that seventy biscuits are thrown in during a single minute. It is
evident, that the biscuit first thrown into the oven would be baked
sooner than the others; but this effect is obviated by the workman who
moulds the dough, and who proportionally diminishes the size of the
biscuits; so that those which are last thrown in require less heat than
the others. The biscuits thus made are placed in drying lofts above the
oven, and are afterwards packed into bags, of one hundredweight each and
removed to the warehouses.
D. From article on "Biscuit" in The Penny
Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (27
vols., London: Charles Knight, 1833-1843), IV [1835], 452
. . . . at Deptford . . . . Meal and water being
mixed together in proportions necessary for giving the due degree of
consistency to the dough, it is kneaded in the following manner:
The dough is placed upon a wooden platform, about six feet square, fixed
horizontally a few inches above the floor of the bakehouse, and against
the wall. A wooden roller, or staff, five inches in diameter, and eight
feet long, has one end fixed by means of a staple and eye to the wall,
at a convenient distance, at the middle of that side which is against
the wall, above the level of the platform, and its other end overhangs
by two feet the outer edge of the platform. Having a certain play by
means of the staple and eye, this roller can be made to traverse the
surface of the platform, and when the dough is placed upon it, the
roller is used so as to knead it by indenting upon it lines radiating in
a semicircle from the staple. To perform this kneading process, a man
seats himself upon the overhanging end of the roller and proceeds with a
riding motion backwards and forwards through the semicircular range
until the dough is sufficiently kneaded.
In this state the dough is cut by large knives into
slices, which are subdivided into small lumps, each sufficient for
making a biscuit. In moulding these lumps, which is done by hand, the
dough undergoes a further degree of kneading, and at length receives the
form of a biscuit. The men who thus fashion the dough make two of these
cakes at the same time, working with each hand independently of the
other. When this part of the work is completed, the two pieces which
have been simultaneously prepared are placed one on the other and handed
over to another workman, by whom the two together are stamped with a
toothed instrument, the use of which is to allow the equable dissipation
of moisture through the holes from all parts of the biscuit during
baking. The biscuits are then separated by another workman, who places
them on a particular spot of a small table standing close to the mouth
of the oven, so that each biscuit can be taken up in its turn without
the necessity of his looking for it, by the man who supplies the oven.
The office performed by this man is that of chucking the biscuits in
succession upon the peel, which is held by another man whose business is
to arrange them in the oven. This peel is a flat thin board, a few
inches square which can, by means of a long handle, be slidden over the
floor of the oven, so as to deposit and arrange the biscuits thereon . .
. . The oven is . . . supplied at the rate of seventy biscuits a
minute.
E. From article on "Manufacture of Biscuits" in
Encyclopaedia Metropolitana; or, Universal Dictionary of Knowledge .
. . (29 vols., London: B. Fellowes, et> al., 1845), VIII,
801-802.
. . . While the steam-engine and machinery have been
introduced in almost every other Art, that of biscuit-making has, till
very lately, been performed by hand. So recently as the year 1833, the
first application of these means has been had recourse to for this
purpose . . . . at present our object is to explain the manual process,
which, is extremely curious. This process is of course somewhat, but
very little, different in its minutiae in different offices [of his
(sic) Majesty's Victualling Office]; we shall confine our description to
that followed in his Majesty's Victualling Office, Deptford. The corn
[wheat] is received from the markets, and is cleaned, ground, and
dressed . . . . The flour used in the manufacture of biscuit for the
Royal Navy consists of a mixture of flour and middlings, or it is the
flour which remains after the pollard and bran only have been extracted,
the corn being highly dried before it is ground. The baking
establishment consists of two long buildings . . . with six ovens in
each . . . . The kneading troughs and kneading boards, or breaks, are
arranged round the outside walls of the building, one opposite each
separate oven. The ovens are all wrought iron . . . . The furnaces,
which are on the sides of the ovens, are also of iron, and are heated by
a powerful Welsh coal, which gives out a strong flame, and is conducted
all round the oven. The number of men required to work each oven is
five; these form a gang, and are denominated the furner,
furner's mate, the driver, breaker, and
idleman.
Process. The first operation is that of
kneading, in which there is nothing remarkable. The proper quantity of
flour is put into a trough, furnished with a cock for a supply of water,
and here it is kneaded by the driver with his naked arms till it assumes
the rough form of dough. In this state it is removed from the trough and
deposited on a strong wooden platform or table, called a break,
to be operated upon by the breaksman, who, seizes a strong lever called
a break-staff, with which he presses down the dough, sits with
his weight upon it, and, with a rapid jumping and most uncouth motion,
carries the lever over the whole surface. It is then transferred to the
moulding board, a strong table near the mouth of the oven. Here it is
cut into slips, and divided into lumps of the proper size for a biscuit.
It is then moulded by the hands into its circular shape, laid in pairs
one on the other, and subsequently docked, that is pierced with
holes by an instrument called a docker; this stamp contains also
the number of the oven, D for Deptford, and the usual King's mark. This
number and the initial of the yard are specified, in order that, if any
defect should be observed in the bread, it may be known where the fault
rests. The biscuits, being stamped, are thrown six or eight at a time
upon another table nearer the oven's mouth, where are placed the other
three men, one called the furner, another the furner's
mate, and the third the idleman, who separates the double
biscuit, hands them singly to the furner's mate, who, with great
dexterity, and even with elegance, pitches them into the oven upon the
peel, handled with equal dexterity by the furner, who places the
biscuits as he receives them side by side throughout the whole area of
the oven, drawing back his peel a short distance each time to receive
the next biscuit. The speed and facility with which this process is
carried on are very striking to the eye of a stranger. It of course
varies a little, but frequently more than one hundred biscuits are thus
pitched in and properly placed in a minute. It may be observed that,
with the greatest dexterity, those biscuits first placed in the oven
must be the most baked; and to equalize this unequal effect the first
are made larger than the others, so that the heat may be proportionally
distributed; the oven, being filled, is closed for about ten minutes,
when it is again opened and the biscuits withdrawn. During the time the
oven is closed, and while the bread is being withdrawn, the process of
kneading is going forward by the men not employed at the oven, to be
ready to commence again as soon as it is empty.
The quantity baked each time, which is called a
suit, is about 112 pounds weight before being placed in the oven,
and which comes out 100 pounds, about 9 per cent. of weight being lost
in the process. The number in this weight of biscuit is about five
hundred and eighty, that is one with another; there are about six
biscuits to a pound. . . .
The usual number of suits which each oven bakes in a
day is twelve, and on extra occasions they can bake sixteen or seventeen
. . . . On a stranger entering the door . . . he is struck with the
perfect order and dexterity of the six divisions of the men, each
attired in a clean checked shirt, white linen trowsers, apron, and cap,
and all plying their several avocations with a steady rapidity, but
without noise or the slightest appearance of hurry or confusion.
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Last Updated: 28-Nov-2005
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