WHEAT AND FLOUR

Hokitika Guardian, 27 February 1932, Page 6

WHEAT AND FLOUR

ROMANCE OF -MILLING. AN INTRICATE PROCESS. The flour mill iwith lattice sails whirling in the breeze and the jolly miller -standing before ithe door with a beaming smile on floury face, are no more. In their place electric motors and turbines drive a confusion of belting, which operates crushing rollers and screens, and needs no human attendance save- 'that of the boy who sews up the bags of flour as they are filled.

With the entrance of machinery, half the romance ha s gone from flour null ing. Instead of horses drawing waggon-loads of wheat to the mill door, ran way Trucks ajjsehargfo the r loads direct into a store, which holds .enough when it is full to last the mill almost a year. But there is -still one relic of the old miller, for modern mills are s t-ill pestered by rats and mice, -and so the cats are still there.. Not one, but a score, which hide in dark corners of the wheat store, in hollows formed by sacks and beams, and wander -at will through the actual mill itself.

Sometimes in one of these corners workers stumble across tiny k i-ttens perched on -top of a -sack, in the sunlight, with the proud parents sitting beside them. The cats are not needed in the flour store, which is rat-proof, hut they do good work in keeping out- the pests from the sacks of wheat. They display almost human intelligence when meal time comes. At 12.50 they receive 'their ration of milk and at 5 p.ni'. pieces of meat. Five or ten minutes before these times, cats wander from all parts of the- nidi without being called, and are ready for their food with . a punctuality which would put many humans to shame.

THE MILLING. It is >said that no man can walk into a (flour mill and out again and say that he understands all the processes through which the wheat goes, from the time it comes in a sack till the -time -it leaves as bran, p-ol-Tard and flour. The milling, trade - -is jne which takes years to learn fully. After being unloaded from the ‘railway'truck the sack of wheat is weighed and stacked in the store with hundreds of others, which are p-led as nigh as the rafters. From these hundreds of -sacks, a number are taken and their contents poured hrough a V-shaped hopper in the floors. From the hopper ,he wheat is carried up to the top of filestore in an endless chain of buckets. At the flop it is tipped and slide s down a steel-lined chute to the mill itself. here it is -stored in bins and cleaned over-night of the straw, dust and sticks which are found in nearly every bag of wheat, and for all of which the flour milling company has to pay.

CRUSHING AND GRINDING. Cleaned, the wheat goes through rollers which crush and grind it, and then floes -through stage afte" stage of dealing and dressing through sieves and silk, which separate the pollard and the bran, and leave the clean white flour, which is bagged and stored in large, wellighted buildings. To watch the actual process of milling is a bewildering sight. There is a roar and rattle of machinery,, and one steps warily to avoid the whirling bells which drive the rollcis. Everywhere on each of -the three floors of the mill are long wooden chutes which lead down into bins which look remarkably like a baker's oven. A guide opens one of the -oven doors, and one gets a glimpse of whirling rollers of polished steel, a continuous -stream, of wheat flowing down one side 'and coming out of the other a,s a rough brown powder. And a || the time the illusion of the baker’s oven is heightened by the smell of the ground wheat, a smell like newly baked bread.

The guide opens a- slide in one ot the wooden chutes, takes out a handful of brown powder. "See that, that’s semolina the heart of the wheat." Rubbed between the fingers it has a gritty, sandy tied. Aind another handful trom -the inside of the steel-lined chutes, slightly tinged with vellow this time. "That's the germ of 'the wheat. T suppose yon know all about that." And still another handful is brim, ‘the skin of the wheat, and yet another, pollard mixed with flour.

SILK-DRESSED. Tin-, -guide opens another bin, this ;ime a long, rectangular struetuie whicn quivers to the beat of fans inside. There :.x a cloud of flour dust, and the mystery of silk-dressed flour is explained. Inside this ,bin the pollard mixed with flour is whirled round and round inside a sdkcovered drum, through which the flour A sifted, living - he whitry-brown pollanl behind. And '<“• ' only one bin. In- ihe Hour gows throng l ' the process again mid last speck of hra,n or pollardT ; J removed, is sri'ed and dressed until one would tlvrk that ihere was nothing left to clean. The .results of s'l ' ' (denning nnd sifting flow through chutes agan end finally into a Hour ling, as a purr " tiito powder, ,smooth and s'dkv to Hi" touch. The hag is sewn np and wheeled away In be placed with hundreds of otlwr whi ■■ bags which fill -every corner of tin- G<-r". Down in a noth Pi' corner of the in U Hie bran and pollard flow into sacks \)h’''h are also stacked away. <>r l he b.i'ion floor are piled the sacks Dill of :<U » dirt from the wheat, the died ami the straw -rod sticks.