Why your bread is f*cking disgusting...

80% of English bread makes me angry. Do you know why?

The Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP).

This is how your (cheap/crap) loaf is made:

CBP is able to utilise lower-protein wheats, combined with chemical improvers, and uses intense mechanical working of the dough by high-speed mixers, together with solid vegetable fat, high quantities of yeast and water, which produces a loaf of bread from flour to sliced-and-packaged form in about three and one-half hours. By introducing several minutes of high energy mixing into the baking process, the fermentation period is substantially reduced, which increases the production speed of each loaf. The CBP method of making bread cannot be reproduced in a normal kitchen because of this requirement. Solid fat is necessary to provide structure during baking or the loaf collapses. Higher protein wheats may be used but are more expensive.

Flour, chemical oxidants and "improvers" like water, yeast, fat and salt are mechanically mixed and the dough is violently shaken for about three minutes. The large amount of energy used generates high temperatures to raise the dough with its large dose of yeast, and computer regulated cooling systems modulate the next stages. The air pressure in the mixer headspace is maintained at a partial vacuum to prevent the gas bubbles in the dough from getting too large and creating an unwanted "open" structure in the finished crumb.

The dough is cut into individual pieces and allowed to "recover" for 8 minutes. Each piece of dough is then shaped further, placed four to a tin and moved to the humidity and temperature controlled proofing chamber, where it sits for about an hour. It is now ready to be baked. Baking takes 20 minutes at 400 degrees F and then the loaves go to the cooler, where, about two hours later they are sliced, packaged and ready for dispatch.^*

Pretty horrible, eh?

These guys are trying to do something about it, and so can you.

1. Don't eat CBP bread

2. Pay more for a loaf of artisan baked bread (this also supports smaller, privately owned, nicer businesses). If this sounds expensive (£2-3 for decent bread) then try to reduce your overall intake of bread.

^*Czapp, Katherine. “Against the Grain: The Case for Rejecting or Respecting the Staff of Life”