Chorleywood bread process

rdf:langString Chorleywood bread process

rdf:langString The Chorleywood bread process (CBP) is a method of efficient dough production to make bread quickly, producing a soft, fluffy loaf. It was developed by Bill Collins, George Elton and Norman Chamberlain of the British Baking Industries Research Association at Chorleywood in 1961. As of 2009, 80% of bread made in the United Kingdom used the process. Compared to the older bulk fermentation process, the CBP is able to use lower-protein wheat, and produces bread in a shorter time. For millennia, bread had been made from wheat flour by manually kneading dough with a raising agent (typically yeast) leaving it to ferment prior to baking. In 1862 a radically new and much cheaper industrial-scale process was developed by John Dauglish, using water with dissolved carbon dioxide instead of yeast, with no need for an eight-hour fermentation. Dauglish's method, used by the Aerated Bread Company that he set up, dominated commercial bread baking for a century until the Chorleywood process was developed. Some protein is lost during traditional bulk fermentation of bread; this does not occur to the same degree in mechanically developed doughs, allowing CBP to use lower-protein wheat. This feature had an important impact in the United Kingdom where, at the time, few domestic wheat varieties were of sufficient quality to make high-quality bread; the CBP permitted a much greater proportion of lower-protein domestic wheat to be used in the grist.