All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S08E01.Yorkshire.Puddings.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-VTM_track3_[eng]1

Ooh, look at this,
absolutely handsome.

I love a Yorkshire pudding
with my roast beef on a Sunday.

Excuse me.

And I love them too,

but mine never seem to turn out
quite how I was expecting.

Come on, Cherry, you didn't actually
think I made these, did you?

Delicious, chewy and crunchy,

Yorkies are a great British
tradition.

And every year, we Brits buy more
than 500 million

of these little
frozen batter puddings.

And this is the best place to find
out how this Sunday staple is made.

A 9.5-acre site dedicated to
Yorkshire pudding production.

What an earth is that?

I'm Gregg Wallace...

Yay!

..and tonight, I'll be following the
recipe...

I'm never this precise at home.

..and learning some cold, hard
facts...

Woo-hoo-hoo. What you got is a
merry go round for Yorkies.

..to find out how technology
transforms five simple ingredients

into the perfect pudding.

I'm Cherry Healey,

and I'm learning how to make
the perfect gravy.

And putting flour through
quality control.

So, actually, it's thanks to
these silos

that my family can have
Yorkshire puddings on a Sunday.

And historian Ruth Goodman...

That looks so delicious.

..is discovering how roast beef

became part of our national
identity.

When the French call us
Les Rosbifs,

they don't mean it as a good thing,

they mean it as an insult,
don't they?

They make a staggering 500 million
Yorkshire puddings here every year,

and I'm going to find out just how
they do it.

Welcome to Inside The Factory.

This is the Aunt Bessie's factory
in Hull.

They've been making Yorkshire
puddings here for nearly 30 years.

The 450-strong team also
produces traditional goodies

like sponge puds,
fruit pies and jam roly-poly.

Mm!

But today I'm learning how they make
one of their bestsellers -

the frozen pack of 2½-inch
glorious golden Yorkshires.

Yorkies are the heart and soul
of the best meal of the week.

For me, they're the cornerstone
of a great Sunday roast dinner.

And in tribute to this proud
British tradition,

I'm starting in the traditional
way - at the intake bay,

where I'm meeting
Materials Manager Chris Laws

Hello, Chris. Hey.

Nice to meet you, Gregg. I don't
want to get in your way, mate.

No, you're fine. Busy man.

Right. All starts here. Yeah.

Goods in. Intake, start of the
process. What have we got?

We've got a 24-tonne tanker
of flour.

What flour have you got in here?

Our flour actually classifies under
the biscuit variety.

You've got cake flours, bread flours

and a biscuit flour sort of falls
in the middle of them both.

What's particularly different from a
biscuit flour than a bread flour?

A bread flour would be a lot
higher in protein,

so it would naturally contain
a lot more gluten.

You want less gluten?

Yeah. We need gluten for
structure,

but not as much as a bread
flour would be.

Right, OK. Do you want to see
a sample?

Yes, please, please.

Is this honestly the flour that
people would make biscuits with?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That's where it gets its name from
in the industry.

In milling terms,
it's determined by protein level

and the variety of wheat the flour
miller would make it from.

So it's soft wheats.

It's called biscuit flour,
but it isn't sweet,

it's all about the texture
when it bakes,

and soft wheat flour has the lower
gluten content

needed to make good Yorkies.

I'm not sure we can buy biscuit
flour in the supermarket,

so what's the closest to this?

The most comparable flour would be
like a plain or all-purpose flour.

How much have we got on here?
24 tonne.

Roughly, how many Yorkies are you
expecting to make with that?

Hopefully about 3.3 million
Wow!

It's a lot, Gregg.
That pleases me.

How do we get production started?

We need to unload this 24-tonne
tanker, Gregg.

Come on, come on.

It'll take over an hour to pump
the flour into this 40-tonne silo,

where it'll be kept till it's
needed on the production line.

So, as I open the valve...

Yay!

..my Yorkshire pudding
production begins.

They don't use any old wheat to
make flour

that's good enough for Yorkshire
puddings.

But how do you test its quality?

Cherry has been finding out.

CHERRY: In the UK we grow over 90%
of the wheat we need,

with farmers harvesting around 14
million tonnes every summer.

But the quality can vary wildly,

depending on factors like the soil,
pests and the weather.

To make exceptionally good Yorkies,
you need exceptionally good wheat.

But how on earth do you know
if your wheat is up to the job?

To investigate, I'm visiting one of
the country's

biggest wheat stores.

Woldgrain in Lincolnshire.

During each summer's harvest, wheat
is brought here

from farms up to 70 miles away,
to be graded and stored.

Its manager is Dan Murphy.

Dan, I've seen some silos in
my time,

but never this amount of silos.

I mean, you're like a silo breeding
farm.

Yes, we have 60 silos,

and our total site capacity
is 100,000 tonnes of grain.

What kind of wheat do you
store here?

We store hard wheat and soft wheat.

At the factory, Gregg's taken
a delivery of soft wheat flour for

his Yorkshire puddings, which comes
in lots of different varieties.

The varieties of wheat have names
given to them by the breeders. OK.

For example, Skyscraper,
Illicit, Astronomer, Firefly.

And a truck full of Skyscraper
has just arrived.

But before any delivery can be
unloaded, it's tested to

establish the quality of the flour
it will eventually produce.

So, first, our soft wheat sample
is ground into flour.

Fill it up to the top? Yes.

OK.

Oh!

The flour from the Skyscraper
wheat should be

suitable for the Yorkshire pudding
factory, if it passes Dan's test.

There we go. Ooh, it's lovely
and warm. Mm.

If it fails,
it'll only be good for animal feed,

which means the farmer will be
paid less for it.

We need to test that flour
for something called alpha-amylase.

What on earth is alpha-amylase?

Alpha-amylase is an enzyme that
turns the starches

within the flour into sugar.

This reaction is only triggered when
wheat gets wet and germinates, which

is why it's vital that it's kept dry
during and after the harvest.

We need starchy flour to give
our Yorkshire puddings structure,

so every grain delivery
must be checked.

We're mixing the flour sample with
water to create a kind of batter.

Then you give it a really good
shake.

I used to work in a bar.
It's fine, I got this.

We're also testing an earlier
delivery, to see which would

make the better Yorkshire puds.

Mine's the one on the left.

And then the whole lot
goes into the Hagberg machine.

What is a Hagberg?

Well, the test was invented by a man
called Mr Hagberg

from Sweden in the 1950s.

The machine tests whether the
alpha-amylase

has affected starch levels
in the flour.

It heats the mixture in the tube,

causing the starch molecules
to absorb water and swell.

Then the plunger is allowed to fall
through the dough just through

gravity, which then tells us the
amount of starch left in the flour.

The more starch in the dough,
the thicker it is,

and the slower the plunger
will fall.

What do these numbers mean?

So, this is the Hagberg
falling number.

It is literally the number of
seconds it takes for the plunger

to fall through the dough.

Does my sample pass the test?
My sample is 247.

We are looking for a falling
number of over 200.

247, that is an ideal
result for a soft wheat.

So, the other test tube got 86.
What does that mean?

Yes, that wheat would only be
suitable for animal feed.

My sample of Skyscraper has passed
the test,

which means this load of wheat
is the right stuff

for making the perfect
Yorkshire pud.

And the lorry can be unloaded

into one of the specially designated
soft wheat silos.

How high up are we?

We are now 70 feet off the ground.

Oh... I'm really, really trying not
to look down. Ooh!

How much wheat is in there?

We have 5,000 tonnes of wheat
in this one silo.

How many Yorkshire puddings
do you think you could get

out of this silo of wheat?

The wheat in this silo is enough
to make

around 416 million
Yorkshire puddings.

How long can it stay in these silos?

Up to ten years... Wow! ..as long as
it's kept dry and cool.

Inside the silo, the wheat grains
are protected by their husks,

and cold air blown from the bottom
prevents insects,

fungi, mould and bacteria
from multiplying.

So actually, it's thanks to these
silos that my family can have

Yorkshire puddings on a Sunday? Yes.

Well, let me just take my hat off
to that.

When it's needed,
the wheat is taken from the silos,

is milled to make flour, and sent to
shops, bakeries and factories,

ready to make all our favourites,
Yorkshire puds included.

GREGG: Back at the factory in Hull,

my soft wheat flour has been
unloaded,

and Chris and I are heading
from the intake bay...

..to the mixing room.

Oh, wow.

Although it's a hall
full of high-tech,

the ingredients for the factory's
Yorkshire pudding batter

are as simple as when I make it
at home.

All we need is the flour that's just
been delivered, plus eggs,

milk and salt.

Right, Gregg, this is where we make
our batter.

So, we've got
the egg coming in from outside,

and then we've got individual
flour hoppers

which come from the main silo,
which hold enough for one mix.

Can I lend a hand mixing?

Yeah, yeah. We've got a mixing
vessel just up here. Show me.

Sometimes on a Sunday, I'll make
a dozen Yorkshire puds,

but I'm guessing here,
we're supersizing!

How many Yorkies do you get
out of each batch?

Approximately 14,200.

And how many of these batches
do you make in a day?

101.

Oh, wow!

101 batches times 14,000.

How many Yorkies is that?

About 1.4 million a day.

Wow, that is big production, isn't
it?

It's massive, Gregg, it's massive.

Right, I'm happy to lend a hand.

Yeah, yeah, if you're up for it,
yeah. Are you quick enough?

I'm eager. Yeah. I'm very eager,
Chris.

What do we need first of all?

So, the first part of the mixing
process is adding our liquids.

We've got 102 kilos of liquid egg,

a mix of whole egg and egg white,

plus 150 kilos of water.

Right, now what, Chef?

Now we've got to this point,
you're good to add your dries.

The first dry ingredient is dried
skimmed milk powder,

exactly 5.02 kilos.

Oh. Ah, you're going to have take
some out now, Gregg.

That's very precise.

I'm never this precise at home.

But then, I suppose I'm not making
a million at a time, am I?

You don't add fresh milk? No.

A dried milk powder
has, like, an 18-month shelf life,

whereas fresh milk might have 10,
11 days.

So my Yorkshires at home sound
exactly the same as yours.

Yeah. You've got egg, flour,
milk and a bit of seasoning.

Exactly. It's just taking
that home-made baked process

in your own oven and transferring it

on to a massive industrial scale.

And that means scaling up
the next ingredient...

Right, that's on zero.

..from a pinch of salt to 1.2 kilos!

1.2, not 1.02.

Perfect.

So that's egg, milk and salt.

Just flour to add.

There you go.

How much flour gets added to that?

140 kilos.

Where do I get the flour in? If we
just start the mixing process.

So, the top button on the left.

Yeah, and then drop your flour,

which is the bottom one.

MACHINE HISSES

With all four ingredients added,
inside the mixer, the blade is

attached to a shaft that begins
spinning

at 2,950 revolutions a minute.

At home, I would
put in the flour first,

and then I would be adding my milk
and my eggs afterwards.

You start off with liquid.
Yeah, yeah.

And we mainly do that to avoid
lumps in our process.

Apparently,
you're more likely to get lumps

when you add liquids to dry
ingredients,

so here, they do it the opposite way
to me.

But let's face it,
they are the experts.

We've got our wet and dry
ingredients happily mixing.

How long are they going to mix for?
Six minutes, Gregg.

We're looking for plenty
of aeration.

So, we want trapped bubbles,
which will help support

the structure of the Yorkshire
pudding when it's cooked.

Unlike bread and cakes, Yorkshires
don't use raising agents

like yeast or baking powder,
but rely on just air

to give them their lift.

The revolving blade traps
air in the batter to create bubbles.

And there's also an important
reaction going on.

One of the key components in flour
is starch.

So, as we mix, the starch molecules

sort of absorb water and thicken
the mix.

That's why Cherry's grain test
is vital, so the factory knows

that their flour has enough starch
in it to make a lovely thick batter.

We've got a batter mix. Yeah.
Where do I go now?

You need to go and see Harry
on the production line.

Brilliant. Good stuff. brilliant.
Thank you, Chris.

We've got nearly 400 kilos
of batter for my batch,

and it's pumped from the mixing
room...

..to depositing...

..where I'm meeting Harry Owen.

Hey!

Harry. Nice to meet you.

Gregg. What's your job here,
my friend?

So I'm the process technician,
so I cook the puddings.

Then I am in the right place.

And this is some place!

It's the heart of the factory,

the Yorkshire pudding production
line, 150 metres long

with 310 scorching hot baking trays
circling the line.

They're made of nonstick coated
steel

and are formed of 60 individual
pots,

the exact size of which is
a trade secret.

And here at the oil depositor,

each tray gets its all-important
coating of oil.

Wow.

How much oil going into each tray?

So, it's around 2g of oil
going into each pot.

What oil is that?

So that's a rapeseed oil, that one.

Lower saturated fat and it's a more
sustainable product for us.

Rapeseed oil also has
a high smoking point,

so it can get really
hot before it starts to burn -

important, as the best
Yorkies are cooked at a high heat.

It's not unlike
a sprinkler on a posh lawn.

A very posh lawn, yeah,

if you were sprinkling it with oil,
yeah.

It's vital the oil doesn't
cool down,

so as soon as the pots are oiled
up...

..they get their batter,

less than two metres up the line

at the batter depositor.

What on earth is that?

That is just a tangled
load of rubber tubes.

That's what deposits
our batter into the trays.

So, if you just look down there,

you can see them pumping into it.

Yes, I can.

Oh, wow!

The batter comes straight from being
thoroughly aerated in the mixer,

so it doesn't lose any
of its all-important bubbles

as it passes through the 240 pipes,

which fill two trays at a time.

Why so many pipes?
You've only got 60 holes in a tray.

We have two pipes per pot

and that's to get an even
distribution of product.

Each pot gets 26g of batter.

So each pipe is 13g.

So we know we're going to get
that consistency.

Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful.

How do you know if one of those
tubes has come disconnected?

Which it must do every now and
again.

Usually, there's a big
pile of batter on the floor.

Of course there is!

GREGG LAUGHS

What happens now? Into the oven?

Well, not until we've checked
something really important.

Let me show you.

Right, what am I looking at, please?

So here, we're looking for what
we call the halo effect.

So, if you look at each pot,

there's a little ring of oil
around each bit of batter.

This halo effect you're
talking about,

that is a little film of oil
creating, like, a ring, like a halo.

Like a halo, yeah.

As soon as the batter goes into that
hot oil,

it pushes the oil to the sides,

starts cooking the outside of the
batter, but not the middle.

So, once we get into the oven,
that's what gives us

that rise on the side, as the middle
is starting to cook.

So, what happens if we don't get
that halo effect?

If we don't see enough oil,

then we won't get that rise.

However, if there's too much
and all you see is oil,

then it'll cook the middle at the
same rate as the outside.

If you don't see a halo
effect there,

we'll get something quite flat.

And if the oil covers all of it,

it will come up like a prawn ball.

It will be very stodgy indeed, yeah.

GREGG LAUGHS
Brilliant, my friend, brilliant.

You know what cooking is?

It's science meets art.

Over 14,000 Yorkie pots

are forming an unstoppable
batter battalion,

and are one step closer to taking
pride of place

on top of a mouth-watering
Sunday lunch.

But how did roast beef become
the English national dish?

Ruth's been finding out.

Ooh, that looks... Can I have that
rib of beef, please?

You can.

This is one of the few dishes for
which we are internationally famous.

Indeed, many in France to this day
still call us Les Rosbifs.

But how did this particular dish

become an indelible symbol
of Britishness?

♪ When mighty roast beef
was the Englishman's food

♪ It ennobled our veins
and enriched our blood... ♪

Back in 1731, a popular ballad even
celebrated

our pride in the national dish.

♪ And oh the roast beef
of Old England

♪ And Old English roast beef. ♪

To find out more, I'm meeting
food historian Ivan Day...

Hello! Hello, Ruth. Come in.

..at his home in the Lake District.

When the French call us Les Rosbifs,

they don't mean it as a good thing.

They mean it is an insult,
don't they?

Just as we might call them
froggies, you know.

it was jingoism between two nations
who at that time were

really at each other's throats
all the time.

So, what is the link, then,
between roast beef and Britishness?

It starts at an early
period of the 18th century

when we're at war with the French.

British farmers were
improving their stock,

making their bullocks heavier,
producing more lean meat,

and it became cheaper,

so it was more readily available
to more people.

The agricultural revolution is...
Starts in Britain.

Yeah, and it overtakes the French.

Yeah. There are diary entries of
French people astonished at how good

English beef is, and you get
the birth of this idea of John Bull,

who is a stocky yeoman farmer class.

The fictional comic character
John Bull

first appeared in a satirical
pamphlet printed in London in 1712.

He soon became a hugely successful
symbol of Englishness,

the embodiment of the
superior national character,

made strong on a diet
of British beef.

A great contrast to a familiar
enemy of the time - the French.

Here's our big and very
grumpy-looking John Bull,

and then we've got this skinny
Frenchman

with his frogs hanging up
behind him.

It just says it all in one image,
doesn't it?

So this is a traditional dish.

Roast beef had
been around for centuries

and people had thought of it
as fairly British before.

But at this point
in the 18th century,

it becomes a political hot topic.

And it does become democratised,
because it was always a bit

of a luxury meat but as farming
improves, beef prices come down.

And in the towns, particularly,

you get butchers who can sell it
to fairly ordinary people.

And also, you get certain festival
things,

like coronations and jubilees,

they roast whole oxen on the street
for the benefit of the poor.

They're getting a share
of the national iconic dish.

So beef becomes supreme,
it becomes king.

We're lucky to have this
amazing rib of beef,

which we're cooking
18th-century-style, on a spit.

We've seen images of roasting spits
set up over a fire,

but in reality, meat would have been
cooked in front of it.

So in the 18th or 19th century, this
isn't the way the poor were eating.

This is people with a certain
amount of wealth.

You need a lot of fuel

and you need a certain amount
of equipment to be able to do this.

Yeah. I mean, merchant class
upwards, basically.

With the joint in front of the fire,

it's easy to keep it
beautifully succulent.

So that's the beef, but what
about its famous accompaniment?

So, how far back in history does
the Yorkshire pudding go?

The first recipe doesn't
get published until 1737,

and it's not called a Yorkshire
pudding.

In this little book here,

there's a recipe for something
called a dripping pudding,

and it outlines exactly the process
that we're going to do.

And a slightly later author
called Hannah Glasse,

a very famous cookery writer,
she gives an identical recipe,

ten years later, and calls it
a Yorkshire pudding.

There it is - "a Yorkshire pudding."

It wasn't until a bit later
in the 18th, early 19th century

that it got paired with John Bull's
beef as another emblem.

Yorkshire puddings got their name
as they were a northern speciality.

This recipe is nearly 300 years old,

but the ingredients are the same
as today -

flour, eggs and milk.

We've got to whip it up to a nice,
smooth texture. No lumps.

I'm just going to very quickly pour
it in. Nice, just gently.

Look at that! See the bubbles
forming? Oh, yeah!

That's exactly what it
should look like.

That looks so delicious!

Oh! Let's get it off
and we'll put it over here.

Here we go. Look at that, eh?
Oh-ho-ho!

Ooh-ho-ho! Yorkshire pudding
and roast beef.

That looks good, doesn't it?
That looks perfect, yeah.

So here we are,

part of a tradition that goes
back centuries.

You can really see why this became
a dish

that we were known for
internationally.

So although the actual methods
we've used for cooking

is utterly different from modern
Britain,

yet this is still recognisably

the dish of the 21st century,

as well as it is a dish of the 18th
century.

So, here's to roast beef,
past and present.

THEY LAUGH

In Hull, we're now an hour
and 21 minutes into production.

The factory's simple,
traditional batter is pretty much

the same as Ruth's 300-year-old
recipe.

But we're cooking our Yorkies
in rapeseed oil, not dripping.

And instead of an open fire,

our puddings are parading
into this massive conveyor oven.

It's a gas-fired monster,

wide enough to take five trays
side-by-side,

and a staggering 53 metres long.

How long are our Yorkshire
puddings in 53 metres of oven?

The oven lasts just
under 14 minutes,

but it's split into four zones.

Is it equal times in each zone?

Yeah, so it's a continuous rolling
belt.

So, it's in each zone exactly
the same,

so it's just under three
and a half minutes each zone.

Take me through the zones.
Zone one is our pre-bake zone.

So it takes it from the ambient
temperature up to 185 degrees.

Gas mark four, gas mark five.

It's in between the two, yeah,
around there. Right.

Then we go into zone two, which is
where we start bringing in

some real heat. So, we go up
to 215 degrees in zone two.

And that is where that halo
comes in important.

That's what gives us our rise.
So zone two is our rise.

Inside the oven,

the halo of hot oil in the pots
begins to cook

the outside of the Yorkshire pudding
first.

As the batter heats, the air inside
the bubbles expands,

enlarging them.

At the same time,
liquid in the batter turns to steam,

expanding them further, causing
the edges of the puddings to rise,

giving them their famous shape...

..before they continue their march
through the oven.

Zone three is where we
bring in our structure.

So what we don't want to happen
is it to get through the oven,

and then they just
collapse on themselves.

So it hardens the bottom
and the sides that bit more,

so it keeps that structure
and keeps that well in the middle.

So, what's zone four?

Zone four's all about colour.

It's all about getting that golden
brown colour

that kind of we associate with
Yorkshires.

It's cooking at home, isn't it?

Just by the tonne.

By the tonne, yeah.

Very impressive, very impressive.

Come on, we've got to see them
coming out, haven't we? Can I?

Come on, then.

You explain things very
well. Thank you.

Come on, where are they,
the beauties?

There they are!

After just 14 minutes,

my Yorkshires emerge bronzed
and beautiful.

That's a good sight, isn't it?
Look at that.

I wonder how many Sunday roasts are
on those trays.

Beautifully toasty.

Look at them.

That's a good sight.
That's a lovely sight.

Whoa!

But the heat is considerable,
isn't it?

Yeah. So, first things first,

I need you to stick them on for me.

What, they guard your arms?

Yeah, so they're a Kevlar sleeve,

so, yeah, they'll protect
you from the heat of the trays.

This is where we do our spec checks

just to check that everything's
right with the pudding.

Do you want to take a couple off?

Fresh out of the oven,

the Yorkshires are a blistering
95 Celsius.

Whoa!

Wow!

Every half an hour, ten Yorkies
are picked for quality control.

First, the height check.

To make the grade, they've got to
be between 60-68mm.

So, we're at 67mm.

Mate, bang-on! And... lovely.

So we are in spec.

But why would they be
not the right height?

Well, so, because the egg and
the flour are natural ingredients,

they're never the same.

So we need to make sure that,
even though the recipe

is still the same and our oven is
still the same,

that the ingredients are behaving
as expected.

What do you do if they're not
the required size?

We have a partnership with a charity
that deal with food banks and stuff.

So, nothing really goes to waste.

Any other tests? Yeah, so the next
thing that we have to do

is we have to check them visually,

and we're looking for the structure,

that we've got those sides
hardened nicely

and we've got that nice
fluffy interior.

Well, look, I can clearly see that
that is crispy on the outside

and light and fluffy in the middle.
There we go. Which is exactly

what we want, right? It's exactly
what we're looking for.

Now what? Are you ready to taste
one?

That is my particular forte.
Right. Okey dokey.

Does it taste like a good Yorkshire?

Well, I don't think it should
taste of anything.

What it should be is a texture,
that's what I think.

We want a little hint of salt

and a little bit of an egg flavour
in there.

You know, you're right.

A little hint of seasoning... Yeah.

..and almost like an essence
of egg yolk.

Mate, that is cracking!

I have done a great job here,
with your help.

There we go.

So now we need to get them
out of the tins.

Do you want to come this way?

1,140 Yorkshire puds

emerge from the oven every minute.

And there's an ingenious solution

to getting them out of their tins.

So this, Gregg, is our de-tinner.

So if you just want to have a
peep in there.

Ha!

GREGG LAUGHS

Is it blowing them off?

GREGG LAUGHS

That is genius!

No way, I never expected that.

It's blowing them off!

I just would have expected
the tin to flip.

That is extraordinary.

It's like they're all racing
to get off the tin!

Ready. Steady. Go!

And they're all charging down the
ramp.

The de-tinning machine blasts
compressed air at the puddings -

the equivalent pressure
of 66 hairdryers.

I think that is proof of just how
light Yorkshire puddings are.

Run away! Run away!

Because they're so light,

they don't damage each other
as they land.

Where do the trays go now?

So, once they've been through here,

they go back down just to the oil
unit that we started at.

And that's why when they get to that
point, they're still hot.

And when the trays get
back to the oil depositor,

the whole cycle begins again with
the next batch of 14,000.

Now, Yorkies might be my favourite
part of a roast dinner,

but the washing-up definitely
isn't.

Ruth's been discovering

some long-lost cleaning tips from
the past.

I'm going to let
you in on a secret.

When it comes to pots and pans,

the old Tudor methods are just as
effective

and rather more eco-friendly than
anything we have today.

I'm at Athelhampton House in Dorset,

where I'm going to share some
old-style washing-up techniques

with chef and food writer
Roopa Gulati.

Roopa, hello! Hello!

Now, I know a lot about this
particular history,

but chefs know all about dirty pans,

and Roopa's brought one
from her own kitchen.

I'm going to show you how
I normally clean it.

There's something that gives me
great pleasure, when I see a pan

that's caked on, and then a bit of a
scrub...

..and it's back to new again.

Sounds like I might have a bit
of trouble persuading Roopa

that my historical techniques
can rival her favourite scourer.

Although the pad goes back to the
early 20th century,

the idea of using abrasion is
a much older one.

Ah, I see. And I'd like to show
you something,

if you'd like to come
and have a look.

To demonstrate the secrets
of washing-up Tudor-style,

we're heading for the garden.

So this is what
I wanted to show you,

this weed, called horsetail.

And interestingly, some of the old
traditional names

really give a clue
as to how it was used.

It gets called "scourwort"!

As in scour?

This is from
Gerard's Herball in 1597.

So, this is a Tudor text. Mm-hm.

And as he says, "the whole plant
is also tough, hard,

"and fit to shave
and rub wooden things."

So to clean wooden bowls?

And it works brilliantly,

because the plant,
within its tissues,

makes little tiny flakes of silica.

It's making a scouring thing
within the tissues.

Horsetail, or scourwort,

is a common weed
found in gardens across the country.

The silica in its leaves and stems
is a hard chemical compound

also found in rocks and sand.

So, what I've got here are a couple
of wooden bowls.

Now, they've had porridge in them,

which, as we all know,
really sticks. Yes.

It's a challenge and a half.
So let's start with a bowl.

Just a little bit of water.

But it is coming off!

Just lifts it straight off.

That's incredible.

Those little tiny bits of silica
are really tiny

and that means they get into every
nook and cranny in the wood. Yeah.

Silica, derived from quartz,
is still used

in some modern scouring powders.

I am so impressed.

Give it a rinse. Get rid
of the leaves.

Get rid of the leaves and I'm done!
And then you're done.

It is nature's scouring pad.

Wooden plates weren't the only
tableware to clean

in the Tudor kitchen.

After a feast, with
platters of meat piled high,

someone had to tackle the pots
and pans.

So, a big pan full of grease.

So for that, we need the magic
ingredient,

which is this stuff here.
What's that?

Well, this is wood ash.

It's straight out of the fire.

So you're saying you can clean
all that grease... Yeah.

..with a little bit of wood ash from
the grate?

Wood ash from the grate.

Now, within it is this chemical,
potassium hydroxide.

It's going to cut grease,

and it's going to kill bacteria.

So I can pop a bit of wood ash in.

Then I need a bit of hot water...

..just to sort of activate it.

And you can see already, the heat
starts to melt the ash. Yes.

Potassium hydroxide can be
corrosive,

but this small amount of wood ash
and water

forms a very mild solution.

You can see the way it's cutting
through the grease.

That is the chemical starting
to do its thing.

And the horsetail comes into its own
again. Look at that. Yeah.

Potassium hydroxide is an alkali,
and when it's mixed with

the fatty acids of the grease,
it creates a simple form of soap.

It also acts as a disinfectant

by destroying the cell walls
of fungi and bacteria,

and is still used in some modern
cleaning products.

Who would have ever thought?

That's heaps better than it was.

Age-old technology.

This method of using ash was global.

The only reason it changes
is that we run out of wood ash.

And why did we run out?

It's all about cooking fires, about
changing over from wood to coal.

In 1570... Yeah. ..Queen Elizabeth
is on the throne,

Queen Elizabeth I,
the last of the Tudors.

We're still a wood-fired nation.

Within 30 years...

..London has become a coal city.

As the population of the city grew,

the high demand for firewood
made it more expensive,

so Londoners turned to cheaper coal
to burn in their fireplaces...

..meaning no more wood ash.

And then what happens?
Well, then, you have to use soap.

Before that, nobody bothered with
soap. No, you didn't need it.

Even today, the old washing-up
method could still come in handy.

If I was to go camping, and you've
forgotten your washing-up liquid,

and all the rest... Perfect! And
it can be as hygienic as anything,

because the wood ash is not only
cutting the grease,

it is destroying bacteria.

Works a treat. It looks clean.

It is clean. And it's even sterile.

And eco-friendly, too.
And eco-friendly, too.

Back at the Yorkshire pudding
factory in Hull,

we're two hours
and 15 minutes into production.

My batch of Yorkies are hot
out of the oven.

But we're making frozen puds,

so in just three minutes,

they travel by conveyor
from de-tinning

to the freezer...

..where Harry's waiting with some
cosy-looking kit.

Now, then, Gregg,
I need you to pop that on for me.

That looks ominous. It does.

There we go, Gregg.
Oh! Whoa-ho-ho!

Well, the contrast between out there
and in here

couldn't be more different,
could it?

What is it in here, minus what?
About -30, yeah.

We're always told not to put hot
food in a freezer.

We are, yeah. There's a bit of a
difference between our freezer

and kind of a domestic freezer.

This one is a lot bigger
and a lot colder.

What's a domestic freezer,
about -20?

It'd be around about -18, -20,
something like that, yeah.

Why are they going round and round?

So this is a spiral freezer.
We use it for a couple of reasons.

It saves space on the factory floor,
for a start.

And we can get an airflow
that we need

to really blast freeze
those puddings.

What temperature do you need
to get them down to?

So we need to get them
down to -18 degrees.

And how long does it take
to get them down to that?

So the freezer in total
is 16 minutes.

So they go from about
95-98 degrees

when they exit the oven,
to -18 at the end of the freezer.

So why do you freeze them
so quickly?

If you think of freezing as kind
of freezing it in time,

and it means that the puddings just
don't deteriorate at all, really.

Freezing the Yorkies doesn't just
make it convenient for us at home.

It also means they can be made
to the traditional recipe

without any preservatives.

By freezing them, the factory
extends the shelf life

by up to a year.

What you've got is a
merry-go-round for Yorkies,

that's what you've got there, mate.

We have a 14-tier merry-go-round.

The 14 tiers can hold over 18,000
Yorkshire puddings at a time,

all working their way up
the spiral freezer.

Look, I was really hot, and it might
surprise you to know

that I'm really, really cold.
Can we get out of here?

Yeah, we'll get out.

Oh, my glasses have steamed up!

My Yorkshires exit
the top of the freezer

and are carried away by a vibrating
belt that removes excess oil

and stops them sticking
to each other.

And now they're frozen,
we need to pick up the pace...

..so the Yorkies travel along
25 metres of conveyor

to the packing area,

where I'm meeting packing
technician Zara Williamson.

This is where the magic happens with
the Yorkshire puddings.

GREGG LAUGHS

Is that right?

What's this machine doing?

So this is dropping ten Yorkshire
puddings into a bag at the bottom.

Always ten? Yes.

And is there a specific weight
that needs to be in the bag?

We're aiming for 190g.

Ten Yorkshire puddings in a bag
always weighs 190g?

Yes. So what do you call these
metal cups?

Hopper heads. And how many hopper
heads on each machine, then?

There's 16 hopper heads
on each machine.

The perfect Yorkie weighs 19g,

but although they're made from
the same amount of batter,

they can differ in weight by a gram
or two.

So, the multi-head weighing machine
uses delicate weigh cells

inside the hoppers to find ten
puddings

that add up to exactly 190g.

So if one's 20, it's looking for
another one that's 18?

Absolutely. Brilliant! Brilliant,
brilliant!

If one's 19, it's looking
for another one that's exactly 19?

Yeah, that's right. And is that
doing this all the time? Yes.

So to me, it just looks like they're
falling through the holes.

- ZARA LAUGHS
- But it's weighing them all up.

it's actually a crucial part
of the job.

How fast is it doing it?

Super fast. It's 8,100 bags an hour.

That's mind-boggling.

Over a tonne an hour.

Why did you need to do it
so quickly?

So the Yorkshires don't thaw.

So, over a tonne of frozen Yorkshire
puddings every hour,

perfectly weighed,
perfectly bagged in tens? Yes.

Can I see what happens to them
down there?

Yeah, 'course you can.

Hidden inside the bagging machine,

135 plastic bags are filled with
ten Yorkies every minute!

So this is the sealing machine.

So this is sealing the top
and the bottom of the pack.

There's two clamps on the jaws,
which are hot, which are sealing

the bottom and the top end.

Grab a bag and I'll show you.

That's funny because the bag's,
like, frozen,

but the top and the bottom are
almost hot. Yeah.

And we also have an air
pocket at the top of the seal,

which allows air to escape.

Ah! So when we're packing them
into the boxes,

we can pack them nice and neatly...

Brilliant! ..and they don't get
damaged.

The air pocket lets air out
when pressure's applied to the bags,

so they don't burst if squashed.

And it doesn't let air
back in again,

because the pressure is the same
outside and inside the bag.

Are these ready to go in a box now?

Just one more test. Follow me.

What are we going to do?

We're going to cook them.
Well, you're going to cook them.

Why are we testing them?
We've already tested them once.

Because we need to make sure
that they taste as good as they did

when they came out of the oven.

Obviously, they've been frozen,

so we need to make sure
they taste the same.

Because the Yorkshires
have already been cooked,

they just need five minutes to heat
through from frozen.

Excellent.

EGG-cellent!

ZARA LAUGHS

Well, if anything, they've got
an even better colour.

Nice and crispy.

Not at all greasy.

I'll give you this.

I can't tell the difference between
when they were cooked

before they were frozen and cooked
after they're frozen.

And that's what we want.

So, well done, you.
And you. Well done, you.

Well, yeah, they were going to be
perfect, weren't they? They were my
batch!

I had all confidence.

Of course, a perfect Yorkshire
pudding is nothing

without the perfect sauce.

So, Cherry's finding out
how to become a gravy guru.

CHERRY: There's nothing worse than
slaving for hours over a roast dinner

only to have an epic gravy fail.

It's lumpy, it's thin,

it's salty, it's oily,

and it's a bit of a mood dampener
on a Sunday.

To prevent another
gravy catastrophe,

I've invited
food scientist Barbara Bray to lunch.

Barbara... Hi! ..perfect timing!
I need your help, come in.

I'm hoping her knowledge
of molecular gastronomy

will transform my Sunday roast.

One thing I do know is
that my meat needs to rest.

And while it's doing that, it's
the perfect time to prep our sauce.

First up, the stock,

and I'm really hoping there's
a short cut.

You can do it the traditional way,

where you're boiling bones
of beef and vegetables

for four hours and reducing it
right down, or...

BOTH: Or...

..we can use the help of science...

Hooray! ..and have ready-made stock.

It has taken all the components of
what we would have had

in a traditional stock, but it's
a dried powder

or it's a stock pot.

The short-cut stock cube is
made by dehydrating ingredients

such as meat, vegetables and herbs,

with the resulting powder
formed into a cube or jelly pot.

But we're after an extra
hit of flavour,

so we're adding roasted carrots,
onions, garlic and celery.

We've used a high heat

and that's caused something
called caramelisation.

So, you can see there that the
vegetable's gone really brown.

That's actually the result
of something called pyrolysis.

What is pyrolysis?

Pyrolysis is when you're using
really high heat

to induce caramelisation.

What happens is the sugars
are stimulated into this chemical

reaction, and the browning reaction
starts to happen.

In our gravy, we want those rich
flavours, the nuttiness

and the toastiness that we
get from that caramelisation.

We're putting them straight in

and the flavour will infuse out
into the liquid.

That helps us impart intense
flavours into our gravy

in a fraction of the time that we
would have done

with a traditional stock.

While the meat's been resting,

its connective tissues have relaxed,

and most of the fat and moisture has
been reabsorbed by the muscle fibres

of the meat, which means this joint
should be tender and succulent.

The remaining fat and moisture
in the pan

provides another
layer of flavour for our gravy.

What we're going to do is just
separate the liquid from the fat,

because we don't want our gravy
to be too fatty.

Are there any, like, tricks of how
to get rid of it?

Pop a couple of ice cubes
into the dish,

and the ice will reduce
the temperature.

And animal fat, when it gets cool,
it solidifies,

and it makes it easier to
catch the fat.

Oh, look at that!

You're coating the ice cube with
fat.

Yes. Oh, listen,
this is the best trick ever.

I'm going to use this so many times.

Next job is to deglaze the pan.

We're going to take a cup
of hot stock,

add it to the pan to loosen
the residue

that contains that beautiful
rich flavour.

The good bits. The good bits!

Just like when we roasted the veg,

the flavour-packed good bits
result from caramelisation,

as simple sugars in the meat
juices brown in the pan.

It's still a bit soupy, Barbara.

We need to thicken it.
How do we do that?

So, what we do is
we take wheat flour,

and we add some of the fat that we
scooped out of the pan,

and we put it on a high heat.

And the purpose of doing that is to
get rid of that raw gluten flavour.

This mix of flour and fat
is called a roux.

And heating it to remove the raw
flour flavour

is known as cooking it out.

It'll start to smell a bit
more like a cooked flavour.

And then you'll see the colours
change,

so it'll become darker and darker -
what's called the Maillard reaction.

And that is the interaction between
the amino acids from the protein

and the sugar molecules.

And that's what releases those
fantastic flavours.

And in order to get the good
consistency, you're now going

to keep topping it up with hot
water.

The Maillard reaction deepens
the colour of the roux

and gives it a toasty smell
and flavour.

It's also responsible
for the flavour,

colour and smell of meat
roasted in the oven.

When combined with the
caramelisation of the roasted veg,

both these chemical reactions will
give our gravy layers of flavour.

We're now going to thicken
the stock.

Pop the roux into the stock pot
and we'll set up a process

that's called gelatinisation, which
is where the starch in the flour,

which has lots of little molecules
of glucose in a chain together,

starts to swell and absorb that
moisture in an irreversible manner.

And that's what's creating this
jelly-like substance.

So, it's getting really lovely
and thick,

just that kind of gravy
texture that you want.

It is time. Are you ready?

Thanks to science, we might just
have the perfect gravy!

But to give it the definitive
seal of approval,

I've invited a most
discerning critic.

Barbara, can I introduce you to my
mother, the gravy connoisseur?

Hello, nice to meet you.

So, we have worked pretty hard
to create the ultimate gravy,

but really, we'll never know

until you tell us whether we have
achieved it.

I do like that. So, this is
delicious.

It's just got so much flavour.

It's velvety smooth.

It just is such a fantastic
complement to the meat

and the vegetables.

Thank you for all your amazing tips.

Cheers, everyone! To the glue that
holds roast dinners together...

Cheers! ..the gravy. Hooray! Cheers!

At the factory in Hull,

we're over two hours
and 44 minutes into production...

..and these Yorkshire puds are
nearly ready for some of that gravy.

My batch of 14,000 Yorkies are made

from the same simple, traditional
recipe as home-made.

There's just a lot more of them!

I'm with packing technician Zara,

following the puds through
the factory

to the boxing station.

And there are no high-tech robots
here.

They're packed by hand,
the old-fashioned way.

So shall I grab a box or what?
Yep. Let's do it.

So how many have I got to put in?

So we want ten in a box.

One, two...

You've got to act fast, Gregg.
We don't want them to thaw out.

..five, six...

Oi!

This is where the air pocket
comes into play.

I see, as you squeeze them down,
so the air comes out,

so you can get them in nice
and flat. Yeah.

Without that, you wouldn't get ten
in a box.

You wouldn't get ten in, no.

You can clearly feel the air

coming out of the bags.

The Yorkies could defrost in just
20 minutes,

so it's a speedy process.

But thanks to the perfect
amount of air in the bag,

we're in no danger of damaging them.

So how fast are we doing this?

We're packing 12 boxes
every minute...

Give me a box, give me a box!
..which is 720 boxes an hour.

I'm good at this.

This is a job cut out for me,
this is.

Look at that, look. Look at that.
Excellent.

Brilliant. Absolutely outstanding
job, Wallace.

Give me a box! Give me a box!
Come on!

You're holding the line up!

ZARA LAUGHS

It's absolutely brilliant.

Wow, look at that.

I reckon you're burning calories
with this. This is a workout.

Agh! They're piling up!

They're piling...
That's why we've got to be quick!

They're piling up! Quick!

We'd better go. Look, it's piling
up. Quick, just get out.

Just blame me.

Left to the experts, it takes just
12 minutes to box up

my batch of over 14,000 Yorkies.

Still frozen, they're sent straight
from the boxing station

to the final leg of their journey -
dispatch.

Yes! So is that my batch?

That is your batch, yeah.

How many pallets do you
get on a truck?

56.

And do you know how many
boxes that is?

So there's 45 boxes on a pallet,

which is 216,000 Yorkshire puddings.

Ooh, good numbers! Good numbers!

And so how many times does a truck
leave your factory?

So we have roughly about 16 lorries
every single day.

So how many individual
Yorkies is that?

About 1.4 million.

That means in the UK, we're eating
more than a million Yorkies a day?

Yeah. Even if you account for people
like me,

that have five or six at a time?
Yeah!

It's just two hours and 56 minutes
since the production clock began...

..and the temperature-controlled
lorry is filled,

and my batch of 14,200
frozen Yorkies

are heading out of the factory.

The Yorkshire puddings are sent to
retailers all across the UK

and the Republic of Ireland.

We munch on them all year round,

but eat more in December
than in any other month.

Like a lot of people, I buy
ready-made Yorkshire puddings,

but what's impressed me here is,
despite the massive scale,

it's not unlike
making your own at home.

The mixer may be a monster,

and the oven a lot bigger...

Whoa!

..and hotter,

but the ingredients and process for
making these British classics

are as simple and traditional
as at home.

it's just this factory's
production is supersized!

I had no idea just how much
we loved our Yorkshire puddings.

They make 500 million of them
every single year.

That is staggering!

The factory has come a long way

from its first, early assembly
lines.

But how did we get from there...

..to here?

Explore the history,
and the future of the factory

on an interactive timeline.

Go to...

..and follow the links
to The Open University.