# Grinding Wheat vs flour (Properties of each, uses)



## Tessynae (May 13, 2006)

I noticed on the LDS food calculator that they recomend 150 lbs of wheat per person. Does anyone know if this is so it can be ground into flour? Or is there something else that can be done with it?

If it is to be ground into flour why not just buy flour?

Does the wheat keep longer than flour? Is the wheat cheaper than flour?

I'm a bit confused. (nothing new for me.)

It also says to store flour. 25 lbs per person. :shrug:


----------



## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Wheat keeps longer than flour, is more nutritious and tastes better. I don't store flour. There are lots of things you can do with wheat without a grinder. Here is a page I found interesting:
http://waltonfeed.com/self/wheat.html


----------



## sgl42 (Jan 20, 2004)

here's my understanding, but it's from reading others here and elsewhere that really know this stuff; i just regurgitate what i read...

wheat keeps much much longer than flour. properly stored wheat berries can last years, if not decades. Flour begins losing it's vitamins to oxidation and such the moment it's ground. Commercial flour has various 'stuff' put into it to slow down the degradation so it has some shelf life. And white flour has less nutrition but a longer shelf life than whole wheat flour, which is why the food processing industry pushes white flour.

(Same with rice--white rice has less nutrition but a longer shelf life than brown rice.)

As for LDS, I'm guessing they say to store some flour in case your grinder fails, or you're too busy, but I don't really know.

--sgl


----------



## Guest (Aug 11, 2007)

You don't have to store wheat berries at all. A perfectly serviceable food storage program can be built around ordinary refined flour and other such grain products. I did this for many years when I had neither a mill nor any access to wheat grain.

That said though, wheat berries contain a good deal more nutrition than refined flour and can be stored more easily than any type of refined flour. Genuine 100% whole-wheat flour is rather perishable so is difficult to store.

You don't have to mill the grain into flour if you don't want to. There's always bulgur (cooked cracked wheat), frumenty, and other such cracked or whole wheat berry dishes. 

But if you really try to use your wheat I think you'll soon be wishing for a mill and a good one at that. When you are able to make fine flour from the wheat berries you'll find a vast range of foods become possible. I make all of the bread my family eats and I make it from the wheat that I mill into flour using the grain mill in my kitchen. Not just the bread, but also the pancakes and many other things as well.

Personally, while I have hundreds of pounds of wheat berries in my storage I also keep a fair amount of refined white flour too. I like my whole-wheat, but when I want to make a cake it's the refined all-purpose flour that I reach for. It may not last the decades the wheat berries will, but it keeps well enough for my purposes vac-sealed in half-gallon canning jars.

If you've never seen it before you may find it worth your time to read the _Prudent Food Storage FAQ_ which you can access via the URL in my signature below. It's free to read or download.


----------



## diane (May 4, 2002)

Like Alan, I have both in my storage plan. Once you have tasted bread made from fresh ground wheat, you will never find anything quite like it. It seems more "alive" than that made with older flour. I love my grain mill and use all sorts of different grains in it. I read somewhere that they found wheat in one of those old tombs in Egypt and it sprouted. Properly stored, wheat will probably last longer than us. White flour I like for a cake, and I still like a baking powder biscuit made from white flour. If you want to have fresh ground whole wheat, rye etc. flour around, it is best kept in the freezer. I like to keep enough of each available for a "quick fix" when I want to add it to a recipe.


----------



## Tessynae (May 13, 2006)

Cyngbaeld said:


> Wheat keeps longer than flour, is more nutritious and tastes better. I don't store flour. There are lots of things you can do with wheat without a grinder. Here is a page I found interesting:
> http://waltonfeed.com/self/wheat.html



What a fabulous site! Thanks!


----------



## Tessynae (May 13, 2006)

So what grinder would you recomend? And also how/where do you get the wheat berries? 

Thank you all so much for the great info.


----------



## WisJim (Jan 14, 2004)

We keep at least 3 kinds of wheat on hand--soft wheat for pastry flour (white wheat, a different thing than store-bought white flour), a hard red wheat, and golden wheat. We keep some unbleached whole wheat flour, too, as close as we get to refined bleached white flour. We have a hand-cranked Diamant mill that is wonderful, but then found an electric Marathon Uni-Mill at a garage sale for a price too low to mention, and we use that now as it is a small countertop self-contained mill that is more convenient to use.

I have found that wheat berries keep well in paper bags put in new metal garbage cans in our root cellar. Some of the wheat is 10+ years old, still tastes good, and the will sprout well, so I figure the seed is still in good nutritional condition if it will sprout.


----------



## QuiltingLady2 (Jan 3, 2007)

I grind my own wheat berries into flour for bread and baked goods. The flavor is out of this world good! Can't beat it. 
We have a Nutramill grinder and I also have a hand model out in the store cupboard ice.


----------



## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

I think the LDS lists is made of food items with the most nutrients that store for long periods of time without loss of those nutrients. That list is just the basics that will let you survive, not thrive. Wheat contains all the nutrients that a man needs to live - you have to sprout it to get the vitamin E, I think. I don't use what is stored in cans and sealed buckets. They will store for years and years. I buy a bag locally for my home use.

You will want to store the berries, not the flour. Berries will store for 30-50 years and flour for less than 1 year. I also store white flour, like Alan, for brownies, etc. And, I actually make my bread 1/2 white flour since my family tolerates it better that way. I use 100% whole wheat bread for french toast. And I store more of the white flour than the LDS site recommends.

You can use wheat just like you use rice. Cook it and eat it with gravy on it - in casseroles, etc - try spanish wheat, instead of spanish rice or wheat in chili! Cook it, re-dry it in the oven and then crack it for instant cracked wheat cereal (or bulgur) that you can eat for breakfast or add to the top of a salad. I have an electric stone grinder that is huge and will grind a lot of wheat (oats, corn, rice-whatever) in a short amount of time. For kitchen use- I use a coffee grinder - it is loud, but gets the job done quickly when I need to make bread- and it doesn't take up valuable kitchen space. I couldn't do without my grinders as mostly I use my wheat for bread-type items. But there are more uses that just that!


----------



## Tessynae (May 13, 2006)

What kinds of wheat would you recommend?


----------



## Lowdown (May 24, 2007)

You likely want Hard Red winter wheat. There are some other types to store for specialized use like Durham for pastas, etc. 

I've thrown out hundreds of lbs. of flour over the years due to insect problems. I will never waste money on putting a quantity of it up again. 

Get a mill and grind your own. You can find grain mills as low as $10.00


----------



## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this...........


You can PLANT wheat, and get MORE wheat! Planting flour has proven quite pointless.................


----------



## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

tinknal said:


> I'm surprised no one has mentioned this...........
> 
> 
> You can PLANT wheat, and get MORE wheat! Planting flour has proven quite pointless.................


Now that is the real reason to put up grain........

I can't believe no one else thought of it.


----------



## highlandview (Feb 15, 2007)

You can also sprout wheat berries in a jar and get wheat grass.


----------



## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

highlandview said:


> You can also sprout wheat berries in a jar and get wheat grass.


Yeah, I thought about that later. Get a little green in the diet.


----------



## Tessynae (May 13, 2006)

Lowdown said:


> You likely want Hard Red winter wheat. There are some other types to store for specialized use like Durham for pastas, etc.
> 
> I've thrown out hundreds of lbs. of flour over the years due to insect problems. I will never waste money on putting a quantity of it up again.
> 
> Get a mill and grind your own. You can find grain mills as low as $10.00


I haven't had any luck findiing a manual grain mill anywhere. Everyone acts like I'm an alien when I ask if they sell them or know where I can find one. <sigh> The search continues.


----------



## Guest (Aug 27, 2009)

Bump.

.....Alan.


----------



## Mutti (Sep 7, 2002)

In the winter we always take a bit of our wheat berries to spout for the chickens...really helps production in cold weather and they deserve a treat...after all they are busy laying eggs, making compost,recycling our garbage....DEE who hasn't had store bought bread in years and years.....


----------



## Mulish (Mar 24, 2005)

Or, you could sprout the wheat, dehydrate it, then grind it for flour.. Makes a nice loaf of bread, nice flavor. The health food stores sell this flour in two pound bags for 7.99. You save a bit if you do it for yourself.


----------



## ayleeann (Nov 3, 2003)

www.lehmans.com has a selection of manual grinders


----------



## halfpint (Jan 24, 2005)

Mutti said:


> In the winter we always take a bit of our wheat berries to spout for the chickens...really helps production in cold weather and they deserve a treat...after all they are busy laying eggs, making compost,recycling our garbage....DEE who hasn't had store bought bread in years and years.....


You probably haven't had store bought eggs in years either! My children call store eggs "fake eggs" as they don't taste good.

Regarding wheat berries they do keep longer than flour, and you can use them for bulghur, to sprout, for flour and if SHTF you have the berries that you could plant to get more wheat if it will grow in your area. I keep several types of berries on hand - hard red, soft white (for cookies, cakes, muffins etc.), and Wheat Montana's prairie gold. I very rarely purchase flour.

Dawn


----------



## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

and if your wheat gets bugs- you can feed it to the animals.


----------



## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

I also store oat groats and grind them for flour to make cakes, cookies and other pastries. It is much lighter than wheat flour and tastes great.


----------



## spiffydave (Mar 19, 2008)

I have a Nutrimill and a Family Grain Mill manual grinder.

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/#Family%20Grain%20Mill

The Nutrimill is for the big grinding tasks like grinding up 20 cups of berries into flour for putting in the freezer for short-term use.

The FGM is for more coarse grinds (impact mills are pretty fine, even on the course setting) like corn meal or for cracked wheat. I also have the flaker attachment for whole oat groats > old fashioned oats and the Kitchen-Aid attachment for powering the thing (my arm gets tired after a while). It's also there for back-up in non-electricity situations.

Love them both and I've been happy with the service from Pleasant Hill Grain.


----------

