boulting-msg - 4/15/07 Sieving meal to get various grades of flour. NOTE: See also the files: flour-msg, grains-msg, bread-msg, polenta-msg, rice-msg, leavening-msg, querns-msg, mortar-pestle-msg, strainers-msg, ovens-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 09:59:17 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." Subject: RE: SC - Sharpening Fine Points or Will Adamantius Tell All? >2. What modern flours most closely correspond to the sorts of flours >referred to in period sources? Here's a little lecturey commentary on what I've tried. Bear The Wheat The original European wheat was emmer and has been used since Antiquity. This was later joined by German wheat (spelt), which appears to have been popular in Rome and was spread across Europe by the Vandals. These were displaced by club wheat. There are now some 30,000 varieties of wheat developed from these basic stocks. Medieval wheats were white-skinned and soft (low in gluten). Modern wheats, especially those grown in North America are red, amber or yellow-skinned and are hard (high in gluten). Spelt was popular in bread making because it was harder than the other wheat available at the time. Modern flours tend to be mixtures of flours with all-purpose or bread flour being high in gluten and cake flour being low in gluten. In practice, I ignore the difference between hard and soft flours and use what is readily available. Unless you can get it through a bakery supply, soft flour tends to come in small packages with a very high price. The Milling Medieval flour was stone milled. Most modern flour is roller milled, a process developed in the 19th Century. Roller milling breaks the wheat germ loose from the endosperm early in the milling process, yielding wheat germ and bran as a salable products and high extraction flour. Because of the minimal wheat germ, roller milled flour has an indefinite storage life and is drier than a comparable stone milled flour. The germ is used to make semolina and other wheat germ products. In Medieval milling, the fineness of the meal depended on the quality of the stones. Wheat would normally have been ground on the hardest, closest tolerance stones available to achieve the finest average meal. Stone ground wheat comes very close to the fineness of roller milling. The chief difference is in the level of extraction. Stone grinding reaches a maximum of about 80% extraction. Roller milling goes above 90% extraction. There are 4 layers of skin on a wheat berry. This is the bran. Apparently in parts of England, the coarser fragments of the skin were referred to as bran and the finer fragments were referred to as chisel. After milling, flour was boulted (sieved) through fabric to remove the bran and establish the fineness of the flour. The bran removed during the boulting would be used by the miller to feed his livestock or be sold to others as feed. Boulting cloths were made of linen, canvas, or wool, being joined by silk in the mid-18th Century. The lowest grade of flour would be that straight from the mill. A prudent farmer might take his meal this way to ensure the maximum return and boult the flour immediately before use. Once boulted flour would remove the largest pieces of the bran, but there would still be pieces of bran and chisel and a fairly coarse flour. This flour would be used for rough breads, possibly trenchers. I've used a Hodgson Mill 50/50 Wheat and White Flour, which I believe would fall between once boulted and twice boulted flour. Twice boulted flour is called for in The Good Huswife's Handmaide for the Kitchen (1594) for the making of fine manchet. This flour is used for making fine breads and general pastries. To approximate it, I use a stone ground whole wheat flour with graham and unbleached white flour mixed between 1:1 and 2:1. This is probably the flour called for when a recipe speaks of "fine flour" or "fair flour". I've seen finer flour mentioned, but I can't remember the reference. In this circumstance, I would use a whole wheat pastry flour I am able to purchase in bulk or a 1:1 mix of the pastry flour and unbleached white flour. This particular whole wheat flour is about the same color as the unbleached white flour and may be what is being referred to by "finest white flour". Some Thoughts Modern high extraction flour has a lower moisture content than its Medieval counter part. It will probably require more liquid than called for in a recipe. While recipes call for "white" flour, they say nothing about the color of the end product. Some of the manchets I made with a 1:1 mix of whole wheat pastry flour and unbleached white flour produced a lovely golden brown loaf, whose color resembles that of the breads in Medieval paintings. Would a 1:1 mix of HM 50/50 and whole wheat pastry flour be closer to a Medieval twice boulted flour than what I currently use? Did a miller user different kinds of cloth for different boultings? Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 07:41:09 -0600 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Flour Query To: "Cooks within the SCA" Bolting or boulting is done by sieving meal through progressively finer weaves of cloth which regulate the fineness of the flour, as you suggest. Bolting clothes were commonly linen, but canvas and silk have also been used and they weren't standardized. Today we use wire mesh in the sieving process. Whether the cloths were stretched on frames or not, I don't know. From a little experimentation, I don't think they would have been stretched taut as meal would have been bouncing over the sides. While there was no regulation on flour, IIRC, the highest quality bread, and therefore the most expensive, was required to be made from thrice bolted flour. Since I am unsure in my memory, check the assize of bread if you plan to quote me. Bear > We have talked before some about milling, but not that much about > boulting. I like to hear more about this sometime. Was this done > with particular weaves of cloth stretched between frames? Using > similar cloth in sacks? Was the size of the weave, and hence the > fineness of the flour regulated? in the assizes of grain, perhaps? > > Stefan Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:45:53 -0800 (PST) From: Carole Smith Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Flour Query To: Cooks within the SCA If you look in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the section on kitchen implements, there is a line drawing of a tamis or drum sieve. According to my 90-year-old mom that is what she used as a young woman when learning to cook. Today's drum sieve - with metal mesh - can sometimes be found in Oriental markets. Apparently in the SCA period the tamis had a fabric bottom, most likely linen but could be silk. Cordelia Toser Terry Decker wrote: Bolting or boulting is done by sieving meal through progressively finer weaves of cloth which regulate the fineness of the flour, as you suggest. Bolting clothes were commonly linen, but canvas and silk have also been used and they weren't standardized. Today we use wire mesh in the sieving process. Whether the cloths were stretched on frames or not, I don't know. From a little experimentation, I don't think they would have been stretched taut as meal would have been bouncing over the sides. While there was no regulation on flour, IIRC, the highest quality bread, and therefore the most expensive, was required to be made from thrice bolted flour. Since I am unsure in my memory, check the assize of bread if you plan to quote me. Bear Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 23:32:54 -0500 From: Johnna Holloway Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Tamas was Period Flour Query To: Cooks within the SCA I own a tamis. Paid less than $30 for one back in 2004 from Bridge Kitchenware Corp. New York, NY http://www.bridgekitchenware.com/ Product #: BTMS-3020 http://www.bridgekitchenware.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=977 "Made entirely by hand in France, these wood trimmed drum sieves (Tamis) are used for large quantities of sauces, purees, pates or to remove lumps from sugar, flour, spices, etc. On the sizes listed, the first number represents the weave count (per centimeter) of the mesh; the second number is the diameter, also in centimeters." Johnnae Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:35:18 -0600 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Flour Query To: "Cooks within the SCA" Tamis is a derivative of the Old English temse, which means sieve. A little checking suggest that the small drum sieve is primarily a home appliance. A larger version was used in some small mills, but the drum sieve is not designed for producing a high volume of flour. I've come across a couple of descriptions that describe bolting by forming a bag from the bolting cloth, which was then filled with meal and beaten to produce flour. And I've also encountered a description of a tubular cloth bolter worked by two men. Just for fun, here is an essay on grist milling that contains a description of an 18th Century automated bolter: http://www.engr.psu.edu/mtah/essays/histbeth/gristmilling.html . Bear Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:33:37 -0500 From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Tamas was Period Flour Query To: Cooks within the SCA On Feb 22, 2007, at 11:32 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote: > I own a tamis. Paid less than $30 for one back in 2004 from > Bridge Kitchenware Corp. New York, NY > http://www.bridgekitchenware.com/ > > Product #: BTMS-3020 > http://www.bridgekitchenware.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=977 > > "Made entirely by hand in France, these wood trimmed drum sieves (Tamis) > are used for large quantities of sauces, purees, pates or to remove > lumps from sugar, flour, spices, etc. On the sizes listed, the first > number represents the weave count (per centimeter) of the mesh; the > second number is the diameter, also in centimeters." > > Johnnae I've also got one from a Chinese grocery, but I've used large aluminum-sided ones in professional kitchens. This makes me wonder about bolting-cloth and how it was used, since it's evident that, from the similar term, tammy-cloth, there is no tammy/tamis without the cloth or other mesh; the round thing is just there to enable use of the mesh which is the actual tamis. Is bolting- cloth similarly attached to a hoop of some sort? Adamantius Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:14:23 -0500 From: "Elaine Koogler" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Flour Query To: "Cooks within the SCA" For anyone who lives near a Restaurant Depot and can get in, I found drum sieves there...looked kind of interesting, considered purchasing one, but quite frankly didn't see any need for one...and my kitchen is already overloaded with "toys." Kiri Edited by Mark S. Harris boulting-msg Page 6 of 6