Index / General / Wheat to Flour / Bread Production / Wheat growing NZ / Milling NZ / Bread Production NZ
Wheat and milling history
History
Wheat is one of the oldest foods in the world. Its discovery helped transform Homo sapiens from hunter-gatherers into farmers. Civilisations arose where soil was fertile and wheat could be irrigated.
Initially, man would have eaten the grains raw and found them useful as a food source in winter because they could be stored if kept dry. Wild plants provided grains that could be harvested and ground using stones, mixed with water and formed into cakes that were dried in the sun or baked on hot stones.
Stone Age farmers in the Middle East 9000 years ago were probably the
first to cultivate cereal grains, such as wheat and barley. They also
developed bread wheat from a cross of wild wheats and grasses.
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Studies of women's bones from a 10 000 year old Neolithic settlement in Syria show damage to their toes, knees, and vertebrate. This was probably due to long hours spent kneeling before saddle-shaped stones called saddle querns on which they rolled stones to crush the grains. |
From Wheat to Flour
The discovery that grain could be ground to make a mixture called meal must have been extremely important because raw wheat is not particularly nice to eat. This mixture was so coarse it had an appalling effect on everyone's teeth. For a long time, meal was used to make only porridge or gruel until the technique of baking was discovered. Then, as now, the object of the baking was to convert flour into an enjoyable, ready to eat foodstuff.
Very early in history it must have been discovered that a more edible product could be made by separating the ground meal into coarse bran particles and white flour. The advent of weaving made this process possible. Sieves or baskets were made using horse hair or papyrus. Later, Ancient Romans ground and sifted the flour through linen, twice . This was an expensive procedure that only the aristocracy could afford. The whiter flour obtained was called "pollen" meaning a fine powder. The very best grade they called "flos" a word for a flower, being the best part of a plant. So our words "flour" and "flower" originally were the same.
It is thought that the Romans were the first to have started a milling
industry using animals or teams of slaves to drive the wheels to grind
the wheat. Before this, grinding of meal had mostly been carried out in
the home using a device called a hand-quern. The hand-quern consisted
of two round flat stones, one above the other. The upper stone was turned
by a wooden handle, wheat was trickled in through a hole in the centre,
and meal came out around the edge.
Gradual developments in milling techniques, especially the introduction of the rotary mill around 1000BC, meant improvements in flour for baking. Eventually in the 11th Century watermills and windmills enabled real progress.
Most of the common machines, such as the roller mill, were developed by the 1900s and are still in use in present-day mills.
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To produce a white bread, a whitener such as alum, or mashed cooked
potatoes was added to the mixture. In fact, the desire to have really
white bread was so great that ground-up dried bones, chalk or poisonous
white lead was added to the brown flour. Thank goodness those practices
don't carry on nowadays! |
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History of Bread Production
The bread making process originated in ancient times. The basis of the operation is to mix flour with other ingredients, for example, water, fat, salt and some source of aeration followed by baking. As long ago as 2,000 BC the Egyptians knew how to make fermented bread. The practice was to use a little old dough, or leaven, to "start" the new dough. These two doughs were mixed together and allowed to ferment (rise) for some hours before baking. They made an astonishing 50 varieties of bread, paid wages with bread, and painted breadmaking scenes in their tombs.
A variety of methods have since been developed in making leaven. The Baker's Patent required the fermentation of hops and scalded malt for at least two to three days.
In the early 1900's it was discovered that traditional long fermentation times could be reduced from 18 to 3-4 hours by the use of very small amounts of certain chemicals, called oxidants, in bread or flour. Oxidants, when added to dough, not only speed up the process but also produce a superior loaf.
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This loaf of bread is 4000 years old (approximately). The triangular loaf was one of many objects found under the foundation of Mentuhotep II's mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari in Western Thebes. Mentuhotep II reigned from c.2008 to 1957 B.C. The Egyptians believed the temple was a miniature representation of the universe. The objects placed in the foundation deposits were intended to symbolically stabilise and protect the corners and the boundary walls of the temple. They believed they would be rewarded with a stable universe where there was an abundance of food such as bread. |
History of wheat growing in New Zealand
New Zealand, as the Polynesians discovered when they settled over a 1000 years ago, lacked this conventional food, It had no "native wheat", or any other wild grasses that could be cultivated for grain and therefore it was difficult to maintain a constant food source over winter.
It is thought that Ruatara, chief of the Ngapuhi people, was among the first to plant wheat as a crop in New Zealand in the early 1800s. In the 1820s mission settlements also produced letters boasting about the fields of what they had planted. By the 1840s wheat growing by both the Maori and Europeans was well established.
When the first records of wheat production were collated in 1855, the North island had 994 hectares and the South Island 3163 hectares planted in wheat. Since that time, wheat has been one of the mainstays of New Zealand's arable cropping industry. Today wheat production is centred in the greater Canterbury area. In 1995 the value of the New Zealand harvest was worth in excess of $60 million.
In recent times world consumption and production of wheat have increased almost linearly. In the sixties, between two and three hundred million tonnes were produced and consumed, and by the nineties the figure had risen to more than 500 million tonnes.
In New Zealand, wheat production peaked in 1969 (456 640 tonnes). The total yield for 1993 was 219 414 tonnes. This represents 0.043% of the world's production for that year.
The figures for wheat production in New Zealand do not represent the total quantity of wheat used in New Zealand, however, as we have rarely reached self-sufficiency.
Wheat for use in bread making has been imported primarily from Australia to ensure sufficient quantity for New Zealanders' use. This has been common since the early 1930s. The quantity imported has ranged from none to over 250 000 tonnes per year.
Today, wheat is of major significance to New Zealand's food industry, being used in a wide range of baking goods, from breads and biscuits to food thickeners. Wheat grain and milling by-products are also used as stock feed.
Since the introduction of those first strains of wheat in the 1800s the quality of the wheat grown in New Zealand has imporved greatly to produce wheat suitable for making the bread we eat today.
Over the years, scientists have imporved the wheat plant to produce higher hyield and to improve the quality of the final products. As a result there are many different types of wheat.
Overall, harvests now produce better bread baking wheat. Humans have come a long way from eating raw grain.
History of milling in New Zealand
Milling processes have been refined since Roman times. During the 1840s
and 1850s, windmills and watermills repaced the steel handmill, producing
a much finer product. Most of the common machines of the present-day
mill were developed by 1900. Nowadays, nearly all New Zealand wheat is
milled by the roller-mill process. The grain is cleaned and then fed
between a series of rollers which shear, scrape and then crush the particles.
It is the aim of the miller to remove the outer layers of the wheat grain
and to obtain the greatest possible amount of the whitish interior of
the grain, the endosperm.
Flour from different wheat strains can be divided into soft, hard and very hard depending on its milling properties and protein quality. Soft flours are difficult to mill by conventional means and have low protein content making them ideal for cakes and many biscuits. Bread making requires harder wheats and most of the wheats grown in New Zealand are in this class. Finally, spaghetti and other pasta use an especially hard wheat, Durum, in their manufacture.
History of Bread Production
Bread was the subject of many of New Zealand's earliest food regulations such as the Sale of Bread Act and Bread Ordinance in 1863. At the turn of the century, seventy bakehouses were established in the Canterbury Settlement. They were mostly family businesses which baked throught the night.
In those days, dough was mixed in a wooden trough by plunging arms into the mixture, punching and kneading it until all ingredients were mixed. This task required considerable strength.
Ovens have developed dramatically since the first European settlers used a camp oven ( a round cauldron) which stood over the hot embers of an open fire. Early bakeries used small 'beehive' direct fired ovens heated by lighting a fire in them. When the oven was hot enough the fire was drawn, or taken out and the batch inserted.
With the help of technology, bread baking methods have changed considerably. Most of the tedious manual work associated with bread baking has now been eliminated.
In New Zealand there are two main processes for making bread. One of these is called the Bulk Fermentation (BF) method and the other the Mechanical Dough Development (MDD) method. In the BF method, the mixed dough is left to rise for approximately two hours until it is ready to be divided into loaf size pieces. It is then given a final rising and baked, In the MDD method, the dough is mixed at very high speeds and has higher levels of some essential ingredients. This cuts down the amout of time the dough needs to rise from two hours to ten minutes. The dough is then divided, moulded into loaf size shapes, given a final rising and baked. About 80% of the bread made in NEw Zealand is made by the MDD method.