How Many Pounds Of Flour or Wheat To Make Bread

ByKen J. Last Update
172 Comments

The focus of this article is to equate the amount of flour you would need to make homemade bread. Based on number of loaves per week, and the number of months to store ahead.

I have updated this article a few times. Today I’m adding a chart / table which some of you may appreciate. It illustrates number of loaves per week form 1 to 7, versus storing enough flour for 1, 3, 9, or 12 months. It adds up fast!

Some time ago I polled our audience to discover how many loaves of bread they consume each week in their household. Based on the results we can work out a few things for general preparedness.

1. How much flour storage to make your own bread
2. How much wheat storage to make your own bread

From those who responded the majority go through 1 loaf of bread each week.

1.0 loaf (64%)
1.5 loaves (19%)
2.0 loaves (8%)
2.5 loaves (5%)
3+ loaves (4%)

Pounds of Flour To Make Bread

To maintain consumption of bread during a time when using flour you’ve purchased:

The following is the approximate amounts of FLOUR you will need to buy:

Numbers are rounded up:

3 months flour storage to make bread at home

1 loaf per week = 12 pounds of flour (3) 5-pound bags
2 loaves per week = 23 pounds of flour (5) 5-pound bags
3 loaves per week = 35 pounds of flour (7) 5-pound bags

1 year flour storage to make bread at home

1 loaf per week = 51 pounds of flour (10) 5-pound bags
2 loaves per week = 101 pounds of flour (20) 5-pound bags
3 loaves per week = 152 pounds of flour (30) 5-pound bags

How many loaves of bread will 5 pounds of flour make?

  • about 5 loaves

How many pounds of flour in a loaf of bread?

  • about 1 pound

(This will certainly vary. Some store-bought bread loaves weigh next to nothing and are filled with air! While others certainly weigh more. For homemade bread, I’m using 1 pound of flour for example. That’s a good size loaf of bread!)

Okay, I’ll insert my most recent update here. I added more data to include making lots more bread. Why? Because although the average number of bread loaves (according to the reader poll) is only between one and two loaves per week, a time of ‘collapse’ (SHTF?) may or will result in more loaves of bread! That’s assuming you have enough flour or wheat berries stored…

Note that the assumption here for this data set, is 1 LB flour per loaf of bread. That makes a big loaf using about 3.5 cups flour. We use less than that, just because. I’d say about 2.5 cups.

Factoid: There’s about 18 cups of flour in a 5 LB bag.

Pounds Of Flour To Store versus #Bread-Loaves & Months of Storage

7 loaves/wk3091182273364
6 loaves/wk2678156234312
5 loaves/wk2265130195260
4 loaves/wk1752104156208
3 loaves/wk133978117156
2 loaves/wk9265278104
1 loaf/wk413263952
months136912

[ Read: Food Storage For 1 Year ]

Pounds of Wheat Berries for Diy Bread

If you mill your own flour, to maintain your current consumption of bread during a time when you’re drawing on your deep pantry food storage:

The following are the approximate amounts of WHEAT BERRIES you will need:

3 Months Wheat Berries Storage to make homemade bread

(loaves per week = lbs of wheat)
1 = 12 pounds of wheat berries
2 = 25 pounds of wheat berries
3 = 37 pounds of wheat berries

1 Year Wheat Berries Storage to make homemade bread

(loaves per week = lbs of wheat)
1 = 54 pounds (1.6) 5-gallon buckets
2 = 108 pounds (3.3) 5-gallon buckets
3 = 162 pounds (4.9) 5-gallon buckets

Note: Wheat berries versus milled flour for long term storage. Wheat berries shelf life will be decades if stored properly. Wheat berries can easily store for 20+ years (and longer!) if stored properly. Once wheat is milled into flour, rule of thumb is you’re looking at about 1 year (more or less) for optimum results.

Hard White Wheat Berries (24-pound bag)
(view on amzn)

My electric flour mill:
NutriMill Classic

My hand grain mill:
Country Living Mill

[ Read: Choosing The Best Hand Grain Mill (Flour Mill) ]

Weights & Measures

The following are my measured quantities:

5.2 ounces flour per cup
6.65 ounces wheat berries per cup

3 cups flour for typical homemade bread loaf
2.5 cups wheat berries mill to approx. 3 cups flour

15.6 ounces flour per loaf
16.6 ounces wheat berries per loaf

33 lbs wheat berries 5 gallon bucket
79 cups wheat berries in 5 gallon bucket

25 to 32 loaves of bread per 5 gallon bucket (depending on loaf)

[ Read: An Electric Flour Mill For Your Own Homemade Breads ]

[ Read: Recommended Break Maker for Do-it-yourself ]


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Fire Steel dot com
EMP Shield
Golden Eagle Coins gold and silver online
Peak Refuel authorized distributor

172 Comments

  1. Question:

    Has anyone out there done any experiments on of shelf-life for stored flour?

    The reason I ask is about a year-and-a-half ago I stored (9) 4lb. bags of flour. I put three each in a five-gallon mylar bag, vacuumed out the air and added two 1000 cc oxygen absorbents. Overnight they turned into bricks from the removal of oxygen. Then I put the bags in five-gallon buckets. I’m tempted to open one up and check the results but I really would like to wait a bit longer in order to get an idea of ‘pushing the limits’ of storing this way.

    Was wondering if anyone has done anything like this and checked the results.

    1. We store flour five years with no appreciable decrease in quality. 5 gallon buckets with oxygen absorbers. Just date and rotate the buckets. When I open a new bucket the flour goes in the “gamma lid” flour bucket and the bucket gets refilled to go at the end of the rotation. I’m guessing your process would result in a considerably longer shelf life.

    2. Sydney

      I do not store Flour for long term storage I prefer Wheat Berries (have some already 15 years old and are still good last checked 2 years ago), with that said I do purchase 25 pound sacks of Bread Flour from the local Sam’s Club, I divide it into 5# (1 gallon) Zip Lock Freezer Bags and put them into the freezer for a minimal of one week before using. When needed I just grab a 5#er and use it knowing I can keep it in the Kitchen without worrying about bugs or Wheat Bores.

      Not really an answer to your question, but……

      1. I convinced my parents a few years ago to get rid of the wheat they’d purchased when they were married (45 years). All stored in the square metal bins the wheat came in. Smelled rather musty, but the neighbor’s chickens loved it.

        1. Lauren

          Ok Ok 45 years might be a ‘slight’ stretch of the Berry Storage… LOLOL

    3. I need to dig out the flour i stored, 5 gallon buckets with mylar bags in and oxygen absorbers,,, will dig them out and check them, have a feeling they are no good anyway, has been 4 years

      1. They might be fine… Although I personally have not stored flour that long (I store wheat berries for the very long term) I have heard of others who have had success with flour beyond 1 year if it’s stored right. Would be curious to find out what you discover…

        1. I have about 16 buckets of wheat,, just made more sense, plus theres something about a rustic loaf of bread made with freshly ground whole grains.
          I will make a point of digging out the buckets, maybe this afternoon, will take pictures and send them off, have one of all purpose one of whole wheat flour and one of rye, im more curious than anything,
          Plus if they are bad i might as well dump them.

        1. Makes sense,,, had to toss some whole wheat flour i neglected because it was full of little wiggly bugs, luckily was only about 3# out of a 25# sack, and was over 3 years old, just forgot about it.

    4. Lauren,
      It depends on the type of flour.
      If it is regular grocery store variety. Plain stores longer than Self rising by a minium of 6 months… I opened some self rising that was 2.5 years old and rancid. The plain was ok, but when opened it went bad quicker than normal. I would advise to pack what one would use in less than one month packaged oxygen free together. I packed oxygen free in 35 lb 5 gal can.

  2. Your article made me laugh. According to this information I have approximately 10 years of wheat and flour. I inherited that storage so I’m not sure it counts. :)

    1. Lauren

      I guess I’m with you, I wont need to be buying anymore Wheat Berries for a long Long, LONG time,,, HAHAHA

      BUT, I do buy from a local Mill at $14+- per 50 pound sack, so it’s cheap to purchase and easy to store…. Just add a Bucket and a Stick of Wintergreen Gum to keep the bugs out and poof, ya got a HUGE addition to the Very Deep Pantry…..

      FYI, Bread made with fresh ground flour, best ever. Yes it takes time and a strong arm to hand grind, but ohhhhhhhh so well worth the effort.

      Bake On my friends.

      3. I have not heard about adding the wintergreen gum to the bucket. Is that added to the top of the bucket of the flour or is that for the berry’s?

    2. My problem was with the use we have now and the use we will have in a bad senario.
      We don’t use a lot now, but when I ma making 100% of all bread, will need much more. My method was to figure how much bread I would use to make gravy and biscuits for two meals / for the family each day… bread twice and gravy 2x…(second gravy is thinned and reheated version with meat added…) My thought was there would be days we would not need /want bisucits and gravy, but we would want something and flour will make pancakes. Our measure needed was for 5 cups of flour per day… It worked out to be 210 lbs per year/for the two adults.. or 6.5 buckets…. currently we don’t use near that., so I have begun securing in 16 lbs instead of 35 lbs..for easier and quicker rotation along with much of the storage in wheat berries.
      Bread is not the only thing I use flour for. so just figuring bread is not quite enough.

      1. Helen:
        The short answer is yes.
        Remembering that flour will not store indefinitely. 3-4 years.
        In that time the yeast will go flat also.

  3. When you’re discussing flour and wheat to store, you also have to consider other uses, such as gravies, muffins, pancakes, etc. So a bucket of wheat might last a year if that’s all you’re using it for. I’d assume half again that amount for incidentals and other baking.

    1. Lauren
      You beat me to that question, I was going to ask the group.
      Beside wheat for your weekly-monthly bread consumption what other uses are you using your flour/wheat berries for?

      1. I don’t bake a lot. We use maybe one loaf of bread a month, so fresh bread goes bad before we finish it. Mostly I use flour for pancakes or cooking.

      2. AC, I would imagine in a grid down situation, we would be needing more calories and eating more simple meals so bread with stews and soups would be a good go to item.

        I use my soft wheat for baking goodies like brownies and zucchini bread. The hard wheat mixed with soft is good for different muffins and other types of bread like olive bread and then mix in corn meal for corn bread (yes, use the cast iron pan) and muffins. Actually my bread pans are cast iron too and I love them.

        I haven’t figured out the buns and tortillas yet, but I will get there with a little help from my friends!

    2. That was something i was looking into this weekend, was how and what is pastry flour or cake flour, vs bread or all purpose flour.
      The pastry and cake flour are lower protein and generally ground from soft white wheat, so am going to be getting some o that soon,,,
      As a side note, it did say you could substitute 2 tbs or something like that of corn startch for 2 tbs of flour in your recipes to get all purpose flour to act like pastry or cake flour,
      But still think its worth getting soft white wheat berries and packing them up,,, might be nice to make a cake or some bear claws after everything goes to shid,,,

      2. Yes, get the soft white berries for baking. Also, it is nice to add to your regular bread to get a lighter load for sandwiches. Or leave it out for the more hearty breads. I don’t use it for pancakes or waffles, but I will when I run out of my Krusteaz.

  4. Something else to ponder when storing the Wheat, Rice, Bean staples.

    If/When TSHTF Hard, you may end up with a lot more mouths to feed and the W/R/B Staples will be the ‘filler’ needed to stretch ‘the good stuff’.

    W/R/B are very cheep to purchase and to store for a decade minimal.

    My suggestion; Go find a local flour mill and buy 2-300 pounds of Berries, Get to Sam’s Club and get 2-300 pounds of Rice, Than store up a LOT of Beans (Don’t forget some spices to flavor em up some)….

    Why? Have ya been watching the News at all lately?

    Lastly I like Augason Farms stuff a lot (and have a stockpile of their stuff), so this in not in disrespect of them at all, but do the math, check prices on things like W/R/B, Buy the harder to find and store stuff from places like Aug-Farms.

    But please if nada else go get a 25 pound sack of flour from Costco and learn how to bake a descent loaf of bread.

    1. NRP
      I am the only one left in my family that knows how to make bread by hand…no bread machine. Thank goodness they have other skills, but old time skills sorely lacking.

        1. T in TX;
          I have a “Mormon” boss, he has some still stored from 1995. (he bought 2 pallets full) stored them in Food Grade Buckets with a stick of Gum.

          Are still good and make FANTASTIC Bread

        2. NRP & Blue…darn impressive.

          re the stick of gum “doing the trick”
          have heard this before. any idea why.
          also, am thinking gum one can purchase these days, (that was a while ago)
          might be different)

        3. Jane Foxe;
          Has to do with the Spearmint in the Gum.
          Wriggle’s Spearmint Gum is the one.
          I understand that a Bay Leaf works about the same.

        5. NRP/Blue & Jane Foxe
          Neighbors takes fresh bay leaves off the tree for her storage. It does kill off bugs found in the food placed in the storage container.
          Having used the bay leaves myself, yet still prefer putting items up with Mylar using 02 absorbers.

        6. Antique Collector — cool. Good to know, bay leaves seem to work. Myself, agree with you, however, never know when an alternate is needed.

    2. NRP
      The Auguson products are they still in your stores? Seems that they are being discontinued in ours(w/m). Thought about purchasing berries in the #10 can size for immediate usage rather than open up the bags of berries I put up before the large jump in price.

      1. Antique Collector

        Clarification; “Buy the harder to find and store stuff from places like Aug-Farms.”

        I meant the items that are harder to find and the items that are difficult to process for long time storage should be purchased from Places like Aug-Farms (most likely online), the simple stuff that’s a LOT cheaper get from the ‘regular’ stores like Costco and such.

    3. White rice
      Lots and lots of white rice
      That hot scoop of rice is quite comforting and tasty, and cooked it will keep for a couple days, so learn how to make riceballs

  5. Does anyone have information, besides the company claims, about the shelf life of Bisquick and Krusteaz? If I remember correctly, Krusteaz is supposed to last longer because there is no oil in it.

    Stay frosty.

    1. I’ve used Krusteaz that was several year past it’s best by date. Caveat here is I live in a cooler climate and heat it probably going to a major factor in storage. My olive oil also lasts at least 3 years on the shelf

    2. Make your own mix. SOOO much better!

      4 c flour
      1/2 c sugar
      1/2 c baking powder

      To each cup of mix add:
      1 egg
      2 T oil
      Milk to desired consistency

      1. That’s great if you have all of the ingredients. Krusteaz tastes just fine
        and the only thing needed is water. In these difficult times simple is
        best.No need to complicate things.

        1. As long as it’s available on the store shelves. I prefer my own mix. Tastes better.

    3. The newer recipe of Krusteaz was different than the older one….seems like about two years ago it changed. Anyway, I had two of the older large bags that I sealed 10/2012 that had expiration a dates of 8/2014. I just opened one about three weeks ago, and it is as good as when I sealed it. That would put it at not quite 5 years old.

      My sweet spouse called me one day from work saying he found the really large bags of Krusteaz so he ordered 5 of them. They were 20 lb bags rather than the 10 lb bags so I about fell over, when I opened the box! We opened one for usage to see if we liked the different formula and we sealed the rest of the bags using oxygen absorbers and Mylar.

      We love Krusteaz, the newer one has you add egg for waffle, but I would imagine in a pinch you could get by without the egg.

      1. I’ve read that you can substitute a half a banana for an egg in baking. Though it seems like it would be easier to come by an egg than a banana in a SHTF situation.

        1. Chipmunk – heard that too..Also, Chia or Hemp seeds soaked in liquid for while, apparently works tooo

        2. 1 tablespoon ground flax seed with 3 tablespoons water whisked until gelatinous or 5 mins resting to thicken
          Is a vegan substitute for an egg
          (As a binding agent)

          Can substitute ground chia seeds too

    4. Pie Face, go on Pinterest or google and look up homemade bisquick recipe. It’s so easy and frugal! It keeps quite well. I use it whenever anything I make calls for bisquick and it makes yummy pancakes.

  6. What should hard red winter – whole grain wheat look like? I found several cases of #10 cans, nitrogen packed. At my parents house it is dated 1981.
    I just opened one no smell, the wheat is like a toasted almond color. Do you think it is still good? I have never seen wheat berries before so I’m not sure if I should keep it or toss it. It has spent the last 20 years in a 55′ year round basement.
    What do you think.

    1. Sprout a few berries — just moisten a paper towel and keep it damp after putting some berries on it. That is standard germination procedure and if the wheat berries sprout, they are still viable. If they were moldy, you would probably see or smell it.
      The hard red spring AND winter berries have a pale reddish tint.

      Personally, I would grind some of those berries and bake some muffins!

    2. My oldest wheat is from 1988, hard red wheat. I grind it and make wheat bread that is fine. I also have ground wheat from Sam Andy stored in #10 cans. They are about 17 years old and make great bread. That wheat is before they started fooling around chemically with the wheat the farmers are growing.
      I also store at least 100 pounds of white flour a year. Even though we use less than 1 loaf a week, I make a lot of other bread products especially for Christmas. Then I go to the Mill in Cortez, CO and get my new 100 pounds of Red Rose or White Rose flour. If you talk to them that is their bread flour and cookie flour. Blue Bird flour was made specifically for tortillas and does not make the best bread flour.

    3. Wheat berries if stored correctly ( and a # 10 can would cover that) can be stored 20 to 30 years minimum. Hard to tell if they are spoiled by the color but I would try grinding some and bake some bread.

  7. Semi off topic. As a homemade bread substitute, there is also Biscuick and Krusteaz. I have never tried them, but it would seem to be a quick way to have bread.when under duress a box or two might come in handy. I don’t know the shelf life, but Krusteaz is supposed to last longer because there is no oil in it.

    Stay frosty.

    1. When repackaged in oxygen free, and frozen for the number of days to kill larvae, it lengthens the storage life considerably past the date. on it. By at least a year even for flours…from my experience..

  8. Some of my best bread recipes use gram measurements, not ounces or cups. I use a digital scale for these recipes, although I have calculated the measurements in cup-measures, just in case. I can’t live without my NY Onion Rolls!!

    Also — flours differ by weight (and clearly, different scales yield different weights). Here are some of the basic weights:

    All-Purpose Flour: 1 cup = 4.5 oz

    Bread Flour: 1 cup = 4.8 oz

    Cake Flour: 1 cup = 3.9 oz

    Pastry Flour: 1 cup = 4.25 oz

    Whole Wheat Flour: 1 cup = 4.25 oz

    Cornmeal, coarse: 1 cup = 4.85 oz

    Cornmeal, fine: 1 cup = 6.3 oz

    King Arthur Flour has a different weight chart and it also lists many more flours. Just do a search to get the info.

    1. Thanks for the info – that will come in handy. Don’t you also find that different batches of wheat have different consistencies? I always start with the same measurements, but many times, I need to add to the water or flour a bit to reach the texture that I am looking for while I knead the bread.

      I remember my godmother, who died at age 92 saying, that the ravioli dough is ready when it feels like a baby’s bottom. And when making pie crust, don’t be afraid to start over if the dough isn’t moving how it should (less handling was the key).

      A reminder to all of us is to make your wheat items now so you be able to adjust them for primitive cook methods, and you get to enjoy healthy, extremely tasty food without the additives that make us sick.

      1. @DAMedinNY
        The different varieties in wheat will give different results. Just do a search on wheat varieties and you’ll find which wheat to use for your baked goods.

        Different batches of the same wheat variety could certainly give slightly different results because of the soil and climate they’re grown in. Also, don’t forget how wheat is stored and the age of the wheat when it is finally being used in a recipe.

        I have tossed pie dough before. I firmly believe the best pie crusts are made with lard and ICE water, and handled as briefly as possible.

        I get what your godmother meant by the ‘feel’ of pasta dough — it should be smooooooth and somewhat dry before rolling it out to cut. Never thought of a baby’s bottom before, but that’s cute.

        1. Yes, I use my lard and ice water. My MIL and godmother taught me this. They made the best pie crusts ever. Once you taste the best, you can’t eat mediocre. :)

  9. Something that has struck me with regards to loaves of bread and the hurricaine and gasoline, after reading on conservative treehouse Sundances adventures helping folks affected is the lack of preparedness, and bread.
    We truly are a minority, us preppers that is and loaves of bread,,,,
    These folks waiting in line for hours for gasoline,,, WTF!
    Bread!
    Its just reinforcement of why i prep, and good lessons of things to think about.
    Think about how your going to bake that loaf of bread if theres no power,,
    Im going to scrounge up the stuff to make my bread oven now….

    1. Nailbanger

      “We truly are a minority, us preppers that is and loaves of bread,,,,”

      And that my friend will be a HUGE problem some day..

      1. I know buddy,
        Thats become quite obvious over the last few weeks. My family and people i thought were friends think im mental with all my buckets and cans and bags and guns and ammo and always trying to get the hang of growing stuff, and the damn chickens, stories ive heard from the depression and second ww stuck with me. No bread to be had and flour every other week if you were lucky and you ate out of your garden..
        but now? All these people who hit the store every other or every day, or eat out constantly, have no pantry, no nothing,,,, its screwed up, i would like to think im Christian ish, but i just cant wrap my mind around feeding all the people around me who dont have the sense to look out for themselves, not even a little, its a trip. I dont get it, and the stuff that affects us out here tends to hit fast. My folks were living on Oahu when the tsunami hit may 23 1960, my dad was a fertilizer salesman, hilo got wiped, the business district got cleaned off the face of the earth forever,,, i was born in 63 and they were living on the big island by then and as a little kid i still remember seeing all the empty foundations from all the buildings that disappeared, serious stuff and can haen again. And when it does there will be hours to prepare, not days, or months, so when i read about people with nothing after these storms? I cant understand it nor relate to that mentality that stuck them in that bind.
        Anyway, sorry for the rant

        1. Nailbanger

          9.7 on the Rant-O-Meter….

          I agree with ya 1000%, the mindset now-a-days is Crapo.

          And after the last few weeks, do the Sheeple do a frigging thing about providing for themselves????? What the hack is wrong with people??

          UGH!!!!!!!

        2. No they don’t, nor will they. They will cry and whine that they have nothing, “why won’t anyone help us”? Which translates into… I want what you worked for and I was too busy on my phone to prep for. You have lots, you need to share.

        3. My favorite, “My boys eat so much I can’t get ahead.”

          “Use one, buy two.”

          “They’d just eat two.”

        4. No need to apologise…it is something we all wonder. People are flouridated and chlorinated so heavily they have become calcified in the brain. Look at the treatment of the prisoners in ww2 Germany.. flouride calmed down the population. fact.
          I am not in the hurricane zone. I am not on an island, but we have tornadoes with time to duck, if we are lucky. Life happens, and it is not always pretty ..job loss, health challenges,changing health issues mean more money must be allocated to those areas.. Some persons do not want to be responsible for themselves.Those we can’t help. There is not enough money in the world to throw at that problem.,

    2. @ Nailbanger

      One of those big deep cast iron campfire dutch ovens with the rimmed lid for placing coals in and a bail for hanging it over the fire is great for baking bread on an open fire. Then, if you have to flee, you can take your oven with you.

      1. Exactly! We have two of those deep dutch ovens. We cut the feet off of one of them so that we can use it in our regular oven. The other one is for campfire cooking. Of course, any hearth will serve as a cooking source too….wood and fire, it gets no simpler!

        1. – CN & MT
          – An older acquaintance of mine was one of the very last, if not the last, of the old-time cattle drive cooks. He started at nine years old when his father, who had been the ‘cookie’ died while on the trail. The trail boss didn’t have a replacement lined up, so my friend, who was along as the ‘swamper’ or dishwasher, woodcutter, fish or game getter, etc. asked if he could take over the job. According to him, those cowboys suffered, but he learned and got them fed all the way to Abilene. He died still cooking and cowboying for some of the biggest ranches in Texas. He used both the three-legged ovens, which he called baking ovens, and the smooth bottomed ones he called frying ovens, regularly. Like him, I have a few of both and that is basically how I use them but the smooth-bottom ones, which you can buy easily, will also work in the oven at home.
          – – Papa S

        2. GREAT story, Papa Smurf!! Love the references to baking oven and frying oven — it’s what they are with campfire cooking.

        3. Check out Cowboy Kent Rollins Cooking YouTube channel. His videos are filmed outdoors with his chuck wagon.

          He recently showed how to make “Tamale Pie” with a Deep Dutch Oven on a open fire. His oven has the lid with a lip to hold hot coals. Very entertaining character, over a million subscribers.

  10. Since white flour has a short shelf life, we usually only keep about 75 pounds (3 bags) of bread flour on hand at any given point and buy new flour when we get down to the last bag. DW uses it in a 3 to 1 ratio with fresh ground HRW/mixed grains (6 cups HRW to 2 cups white). Makes for a lighter bread.
    I never really kept close track of it but I know that over the last 23 years we have purchased several bulk shipments of grain in 6 gallon buckets and/or a few 25 and 50 pound bags (6,500+ pounds total). We still have about 2000 pounds left. I don’t include white rice in the above counts because we’ve never bought white rice in buckets for long term storage but only buy a couple 40 pound bags of new rice every year. I did put up a couple hundred pounds of brown rice in quart jars many years ago (96-97) and it’s still good today.
    Put up 100 pounds of North Dakota hard red winter wheat in quart jars back in 1994. It tastes as good today as it did then. Put up a couple hundred pounds of locally grown soft red winter wheat in quart jars back in 1995-1996 and it too is still good. Heat the grain in flats in the oven 140 degrees, stirring occasionally to heat evenly for 30 minutes (don’t scorch it). Pour hot grain in hot dry sterilized jars, wipe rim, put on a new lid and seal just like for canning. It’ll pull a vacuum when it cools and will keep forever. For the sake of this thread, forever ends when I die. What happens to it after that is for someone else to worry about.
    We average about 190 pounds of grain and 50 pounds of bread flour a year, not including rice. Usage fluctuates, depending on how many we are feeding. Since DD left home we are using less. Usage goes up during pre Thanksgiving to New Years season due to all the cookies, pans of rolls and loaves of bread DW makes for other people.
    We make all of our own breads and breakfast cereals. We will crack a couple quarts of each grain about every six months to make breakfast cereal and other stuff like corn bread or Johnny cakes. 2 quarts each of cracked hard red wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye, and brown rice goes a long way. Cook it individually or combinations for hot cereal. The rolled oats, barley flakes, and rye flakes are also used for cereal in addition to adding them to bread.
    Wheat berries and other grains will keep indefinitely if it is stored right.
    Corn is an oily grain and the experts say it won’t keep long but I have some yellow field corn I put up in quart jars back in 1996 and it still smells and tastes corney and ok to me whenever I grind it to make cereal or corn bread. Of course, I’m no expert, I’m just a guy trying to make sure I have a little feed in my trough when things go south. Anyway, If it feels ok and tastes ok then that’s good enough for me.

    1. @ CrabbeNebulae
      I have decided to pretty much eliminate cold cereal as a breakfast, except for the occasional ‘treat.’ So right now, I am eating through my bags of Heritage Flakes — I only have 7 more bags to go. lol
      I’ve found some recipes to make my own bran flakes and that’s what I will try to do. Is it difficult to roll the flakes to a thin layer?

      1. @ Modern Throwback

        I don’t have the capability to roll grain. I bought it already rolled. My last grain order included 10 buckets (6 gal) of rolled oats (looks like oatmeal, except a little heartier… not like the box of dust you get with Quaker oats) and 5 or 6 each of barley flakes and rye flakes.

        1. CrabbeNebulae

          Rolled oats, barley flakes and rye flakes.

          Your starting to sound like a few ‘distillers’ I happen to “not know” hehehe

        2. Oh Crabbe, you are missing out if you are not rolling your own grain too! I bought a roller several years back and use it for oat groats. Everyone who tastes oatmeal made with these fresh rolled oats says there is nothing to compare it to. They have tried buying it already rolled and it is not the same. You can also use it to roll or flake other grains.

        3. @CrabbeNebulae, sorry for the confusion. I wanted to know about rolling the dough. It has to be thin before you bake it. Once it cools, you then break it up, into “flakes”.

          I don’t have a roller machine for groats, but I do have 100 pounds ofoat and barley groats stored (for cooked foods).

          How long will your rolled barley and rye store? I could be convinced to get these products.

        4. @ Modern Throwback

          The last batch of rolled oats and rye flakes I got were in 6 gallon super pails. A super pail is where the contents are vacuum sealed in a mylar bag inside the bucket with an oxygen absorber inside the bag, then the bucket is sealed. I suppose as long as the bucket is not opened, the contents will last as long as you. Once you open the bucket, I suppose it depends on how long you take to consume the contents. The last rye flakes we opened took almost 2 years to consume… rolled oats, a little sooner. I didn’t notice any degradation with the flavor. The key is to keep the bucket closed after scooping out what you want in order to keep the bugs and air flow out. If the contents in the bucket are in a mylar bag then we just leave them in the original bucket but if the contents are not in a mylar bag, we transfer to another bucket with a gamma seal lid… easier to get to and re-seal. So far, we haven’t had a problem.

        5. CrabbeNebulae September
          sounds like this came already sealed/packed in the “super pail”? Where did/do you buy these type of “super pails”?

  11. Hi, Friends,
    Just a quick pop in note here…
    NRP mentioned W/R/B….I agree great items to store in bulk…
    I like Augason Farms products yet someone else mentioned on this blog about a week ago about prices going up on those items, and I checked the Walmart website and
    white rice was $26 for 28 lbs when I bought it in April of this year, now it is $47.99 for the same amount. That is nearly 100% inflation. Quick oats went from $14 to $23 in one year, that is about 50% inflation. Cray-cray peeps…Are you seeing inflation on these items where you shop?
    I am glad we got our long term buckets when we did….
    Hope those who still need to stock up on W/B/R can find good deals…
    Peace out :)

    1. Shepherdess

      It’s not only Augason Farms that’s on the increase ….
      Seems like everything in the stores is taking a price hit right along with Fuel/Gas

      Just for the heck of it I just called the Mill I have been getting my Red Wheat Berries from, up $2.50 per 500# in one year, now $15 per bag, last year at this time, $12.50

      BUT, remember there is NO INFLATION!!! :-(

        1. old lady

          Yes, Still $15 for 50 pounds of Red Wheat, I think that’s reasonable.

      3. NRP
        That price is a bargain since wheat berries are available. Check prices on line, but set down before you see the prices..

        1. Antique Collector

          HOLY COW!!!!!!! I will Not be buying wheat berries online… thats for sure.

          Twice tjethe price I’m paying PLUS shipping….

        2. Try shipping them to a location like mine,,,,
          Usually costs more for shipping than for the wheat!

      4. Every long term food is higher than last quarter. in local groceries,
        flour up from 25-90 cents per 5 l b bag./depend on brand…
        . sugar up 40-90 c/lb, depending on store and brand.
        Rice i have not checked , in last month.but July 28th, price was up 20c/ lb. from last buy.( in early June) . We use 6-8 lbs of rice per month So on my regular list. in some variety. Jasmine rice was up 2$ on 20 lbs.

    2. @ Shepherdess (really all) Rice and sugar are going to continue to rise due to storm damage and flooding along the Gulf coast, Louisiana, and Florida as well as the Caribbean. Buy now!

    4. Strangely enough a 26 lb container of brown rice is only 31.97. You can also get 50 lb of white at Sams club for about 17.00 but you would have to get buckets,Mylar and o2 absorbers also. Still would be much cheaper to do it yourself. Ballpark would be about 30.00 to store 50 lb

    5. @Shepherdess
      It’s not inflation, it’s full-on highway-robbery! When you go to buy a pound of local-grown/cured bacon and find out that it’s $7.99/pound, I realize I can’t let myself pay that price. So we have the last pound of bacon in the house for now!
      Cray-cray, for sure. I need to get some more pigs….I can’t afford retail prices.
      (And btw, our rabbit alfalfa-pellet feed is up about 25% but it’s been up since Spring.)

    6. Shepherdess
      Believe it was my posting about the jump in prices. Shopping in town is not my favorite thing to do with my time so I purchase products in bulk. Like you, we purchased our buckets of wheat berries before the price increase hit. Our local grain mill has been out of soft wheat berries for quite some time, they have been running low on hard white wheat berries in bulk 50lb bags. That is why I have been purchasing most of our supplies on line when & where I can find them.

  12. I’ve been using King Arthur’s recipes on their website since they let you choose to use cups/tsp/etc or by weight (oz or grams). They have good recipes and it’s a lot easier to calculate usage since it’s by actual weight. An ounce of wheat berries is an ounce of flour. Same with all the other ingredients. You could measure water by weight, but it’s a constant volume as well unless it’s hot or frozen, but that has to be adjusted anyway due to humidity levels when baking.

    Plus generally speaking it’s easier to bake by weight than it is by cup or whatever since weight is always constant vs varying weight of a cup that changes on the grind of the flour, how you scooped it and leveled it, etc. Baking is more science than art.

    1. JPaul
      FYI, King Arthur’s recipes are pure evil… HAHAHA
      I use them a LOT, hence I’m on a mandatory self-imposed diet :-)
      UGHHHHH!!!!

      1. I still need to try their New England hot dog bun recipe, I have the pan thankfully since my mom had one and gave it to me. I had forgotten how much better that style of bun is compared the the 100% crust hotdog buns you get everywhere outside of New England. I grew up in NH but have been living in Utah for 12 years and 4 years in Colorado before that. I had a delicious lobster roll when I was vacationing in NH this past June that was served on a New England style bun. The things you don’t realize you miss when you’ve been away from somewhere for a decade and a half.

    2. The other nice thing about baking by weight instead of volume is that you can multiply recipes without having to make any adjustments. So if you are suddenly baking for 40 instead of 4, you can multiply the recipe by 10 and not worry about the amount of salt or leavening.

    3. Also remember that different kinds of wheat are heavier/lighter/bulkier. If you’re grinding white wheat it’s going to weigh and measure differently than red, and so on.

  13. I do keep a 5 lb bag of flour on hand but prefer to use wheat berries. The reason being that once ground you start losing nutrients very quickly. So the flour may be perfectly usable but have almost zilch in nutrient value.

  14. Well alrighty then. By your calculations in the top article, we have enough wheat berries for a few years at 2 loaves per week! Woohoo we are doing better then I thought!

  15. Holy Cats!

    Been gone all day and was anxious to get home in order to see if anyone had some good tips. Starting out reviewing the first part of the thread I was simply gonna thank NRP and Lauren for their tips but by the time I got to the end of it I wanted to copy and save the whole thing! Excellent tips all the way through.

    One thing I did want to mention in staying with Ken’s topic question: Don’t know if any of you are familiar with Nann bread but we have perfected it and it’s a wonderful anytime bread and the perfect SHTF bread that you make on the grill. It’s similar to the bread that restaurants will toss in when you get a chiefs’ salad for take-out. Sort of a mix between pocket and flat breads. It’s wonderful. Check it out on the web!

    1. You’re right about Naan bread. I have only made it once but very easy — it’s griddle-cooked, and for us, that’s a cast-iron griddle.

      We all need to look at the simpler breads that may be how we get our breads in ‘simpler times’. Look at American pioneer cooking, but don’t discount the cooking methods of those cultures from South America, Mexico, the Middle East and their styles of making/cooking flat breads.

    2. Sydney

      Ok the way it works here is if you mention “familiar with Nann bread but we have perfected it” that’s the clue for ya to share the recipe, with the group…. HAHAHA

      Soooooo ???? Where’s the recipe? LOLOL wink wink

      1. Down south here we make corn cakes in the skillet. A little oil, corn meal, milk, salt, a bit of baking powder and a bit of sugar if you want. Can use water if you have to.
        Cook them like a pancake.
        With beans and relish, wonderful!

        1. – If you have a Dutch oven of any type, the lid turned upside down, braced with 3 rocks if necessary, and the appropriate number of coals under it, you have a griddle. Use oil as necessary. Sorry about being off subject.
          – – Papa S.

  16. I personally think in a SHTF situation we would probably all be eating more bread. I have over 200 lb of wheat berries stored which works out to over 300,000 calories or 150 plus days worth for 1 person on a 2000 calorie diet. That’s a lot of energy stored in buckets. bread was a staple for every meal for an awful lot of years and would be again.

    1. Absolutely right! Good bread goes a long way with a little bit of everything else. After all Christ did not say man does not live by beans alone………………………………….

  17. Last week, I opened a #10 can of white flour from LDS. It’s about 6 years old. The flour smelled like metal. I had a very difficult time pushing through the recipe because of the odor. I have baked 2 items with this flour and they came out okay. I’ve also made a white sauce that was fine.

    The flour that is remaining is in my flour bin and no longer smells like metal, but I think I’m seriously thinking of tossing out the remaining cans….I guess I’m just too concerned with the exposure to the metal weld and can’s interior.

    Anyone else actually use the LDS flour?

    1. Modern Throwback

      I don’t, but My boss uses a LOT of the LDS products, I mentioned it to him…

      “Contact LDS and let them know, they will probably replace the product at no charge and pick up the shipping”

    2. I haven’t bought flour from anywhere else for years now until just recently, I’ve never had a problem with it and we use it constantly. If it had a off smell to it you should be able to take it back to them and have them replace it. Might’ve been a rare instance of the seal being bad, though if that were the case it’d smell rancid rather than like metal.

  18. ‘We have 22 five gallon supper buckets of red wheat berries from Walton Feed that are ten years old. Opened one last year and broke out the hand grain mill and made flour. The bread my wife made was great but it was a lot of work with me grinding and her baking. Also have a lot #10 cans of red wheat and white wheat berry from the LDS cannery. They also sell flour in #10 cans with a ten year shelf life. The real interesting part is what do you use as yeast as it has a short shelf life?

    1. I keep my stored yeast in the chest freezer in my basement. It extends the storage life by a long time but if the freezer thaws it’ll still be OK, unlike most everything else in the freezer. It doesn’t take up a lot of room either and just adds to the thermal mass. You can also look into using “natural” or wild yeasts like everyone did before there was such a thing as commercially produced yeast.

      1. Yep. Yeast in the freezer. I did fruit yeast last year, and I’d link to it except Ken’s comment policy won’t let it through. It worked pretty well. I tried apple, orange, plum and raisin. Raisin worked best, went absolutely nuts when I started feeding it and doubled in less than six hours. The whole process (from fruit to bread) took less than a week rather than the four to six weeks for most natural yeast.

        1. Yeast starter/bread starter can be gathered off of evergreen trees..I have never done it but been reading and looking for suitable tree, have one close by…so will be trying if things go south.

      1. Thats a great article Ken, was one that got me experimenting.
        One thing for sure is the sour dough starters, a good mix that is pretty active is to use rye, either fine grind your own or buy rye flour, another tip i got was to use rough wild grains to get your starter more active, like on our place i can usually find a few hands full of either oats or cereal rye or even rye grass in seed, it sorta maked the starter have a boozy smell to it but man is it active

  19. @NRP Could you do the freezer thing with wheat berries? 5#’s in 1 gal bag
    into freezer to get rid of any bugs or eggs and then put bags into 5 or 6 gallon bucket
    with, say, gamma lid, and pull out whenever you needed? I don’t have that much
    freezer space to keep in freezer and will have only enough berries to cover a
    year.

    @JPaul King Arthur has best recipe and video on how to make salt-rising
    bread ever. Haven’t completed moving into new place yet so don’t have everything I
    need and don’t want to smell up the condo with cheese smell (has been described
    more like rotten socks). Yet.

    @CrabbeNebulae Should I crack the oven door open a little to let any moisture
    out when heating berries?

    I read in a bread book that Americans in the 19th and early 20th century ate a loaf of
    bread a day. Makes sense. Carbs for energy. Relatively inexpensive. If a serious SHTF
    occurs I think we’ll all be eating lots of bread for extra needed energy.

    1. Ladywest

      I would have to say yes, most defiantly, Freezing the Berry’s or Flour usually takes care of any ‘bugs’ and the eggs.

      Make sure to let the product defrost 100% before you seal in in buckets though.

      FYI, I only use a stick of Wintergreen Gum in my buckets of Wheat Berries, it keeps the bugs from visiting. Has worked for me for years and years.

        2. I use DE with my rice beans and pasta. My wheat has all come from Augason farms so is already sealed.

      2. You can also place bay leaves in the top to repel bug invasion after opened.. freezing also leaves the germ viable and will remain alive. removing oxygen from bucket will kill the germ… Wheat found in ancient tombs was sprouted with known age of 2500+ years.

        1. Thanks for the information on oxygen obsorbers in with the berries, I don’t want to kill ge germ. Guess I’ll be using wintergreen gum instead of a hand full of oxygen obsorbers as stated in my post.

        2. Just Sayin
          The wheat you are referring to is the KAMUT. Still original grain not genetically engineered thank goodness.

  20. Somebody asked about my bun recipe the other day, sorry cant remember, but here it is
    1 cup milk
    1/2 cup water
    1/4 cup butter
    4.5 cups all purpose flour
    1 package yeast
    2 tbs white sugar
    1.5 tsp salt
    1 egg
    Heat milk butter water till very warm ( not boiling )
    In a large bowl mix 1-3/4 cup of the flour, yeast, sugar, salt. Mix milk mixture into this. Then add egg continue mixing, add balance of flour 1/2 cup at a time mixing well between. Turn out onto lightly floured surface, knead till smooth and elastic, about 8 mins.
    Divide into 12 equal pieces shape either into balls or cylinders for dog buns place on lightly greased baking sheet and flatten slightly. Cover and let rise for 35-40 minutes.
    Dake 400 degrees 10-12 minutes.

  21. Im figuring rustic flour tortillas are going to be the go to bread like substance after the SHTF for myself anyway,,, are easy, just flour and water mix it up, can roll em or press em, and are easy to cook, just flip em around, a little light grease or lard, can either be in a cast frying pan or on a griddle etc, ive got a nice big cast griddle that i can stick on my wood fired bbq, works excellent for tortillas, i like the tortillas because you can mix up a veggie salsa or meat or whatever and eat it without a bunch of utensils or plates or stuff and are delicious, learned that back in the 80s living in socal with some mexicans,

  22. This is why ive been trying to figure out how to grow grains, real tough in our climate, like today for instance, its raining, so anything that i was trying to dry down out in te field would be ruined, but living way over here with 0 nada, no, none zero grain production and over 80% of all food imported i want to know how to grow some grain, even just started some upland rice, going to give it a try

  23. I like the idea of a stick or Wintergreen gum in the buckets of whatever you are storing. You should also be able to sprinkle Diatomaceous Earth on top of the berries before sealing in mylar bags with oxygen obsorbers to keep it bug free. I do like putting it in the freezer for a week but sometimes just don’t have space so use this. I do keep flour in the freezer as I use it. Not for bugs, to stop the oils from going rancid or at least slow them down. So far it seems to have worked well.

    I use only ancient grains, such as Einkorn and Emmer wheat. Only 14 chromomes because it’s not crossed with other grasses so it’s less irritating to the gut. I just ordered a 25 # bucket of Einkorn sprouted grain and will put the Earth on top and seal it up in Mylar then back in the bucket with enough oxygen packets to make any oxygen breathing creature beg for mercy. The sprouted grain is supposed to last as long as the regular grain because it’s dehydrated after sprouting. So far they are saying they have sprouted grain that’s over 25 years old that’s just as good as when packaged. I figure in 25 years I won’t care how good it is, might not care in 15 years. I have regular Einkorn in deep storage and plan on mixing is half and half with the sprouted grain if SHTF.

    There was a learning curve using it to make breads of all kinds because Einkorn takes up water differently and dough is very sticky. Baker is tempted to keep adding flour and kneading but with this bread you leave it sit so the flour takes up the water and then stretch gently, The sourdough that comes out of the dutch oven is unbeatable. Biscuits– great, flat bread– nutty and very desirable, pancakes– light but boy do they suck up the butter and syrup, gravy– can’t tell a difference in flavor, do have to use cook the rue lower and slower.

    For yeast I have a sourdough starter that I started 7 years ago using the Einkorn wheat and potato water. It sits in my refer and is carefully cared for when needed. I do not feed it every two weeks like some say you have to, my grandmother only fed hers a day or two before she used it otherwise it was sitting in the back of her fridge. It might be wrong but that’s what I do with mine. The liquor on top gets dark and strong adding to the flavor. When pulled out of the refer a day or two before I use it and it’s fed for a day or two days, it works great.

    I agree with many here we will probably be eating a lot more bread if SHTF than we do now, Will need more calories because we will become more active out of necessity.

    IN GOD WE TRUST

    1. preparednana
      Where are you purchasing your grains at, are they local or shipped into you?

      Your started sounds interesting, could you please tell me how you set it up to grow and how much you feed it before using it. I love sourdough bread, butter milk bread…just any bread but all time favorite was Missy’s cinnamon rolls.

      1. I am buying my grain out of Alabama, called: To Your Health Sprouted Grain co, so I have to have it shipped to WA. They do use a standard shipping of $15.00 so that’s great. I pay more for the Sprouted Einkorn, $4.84 per pound but my gut appreciates it. If a SHTF situation arises I would mix it 50-50 with unsprouted Einkorn hoping my gut could be okay with that blend, I do pretty well with most sprouted grains and most ancient grains.

        My starter takes about a week. To start boil cleaned, skin on potatoes in water until tender when poked with a fork. Remove potatoes from water and use in what ever way you please. Reserve water.

        Day 1–Mix 4 ounces of flour with 4 ounces of potato water in a glass or plastic bowl. Cover and leave sit on the counter in the kitchen. Reserve potato water in refer.

        Day 2—mix the starter several times during the day, there should be bubbles starting.

        Day 3–add 4 ounces of room temperature potato water and 4 ounces of flour to your started and mix well. Reserve potato water in refer. Your starter should start to have a sour odor and have lots of bubbles.

        Day 4–add 4 ounces of room temperature potato water and 4 ounces of flour to your starter and stir vigorously. Reserve remaining potato water in the refer. By the end of day 4 you should have lots of bubbles and a wonderful sour odor.

        On day 5 test your starter by dropping a bit in a glass of water, if it floats it’s ready to use, if not just leave it sit on the counter until day 6 and test again. if the starter floats it’s ready if not it can sit one more day. I never had to leave mine past day 6 but we keep our house pretty cool. I think I would pitch the whole thing and start over if it didn’t float by then. Don’t know for sure never had it happen.

        When the starter is ready to use add 8 ounces of potato water and 8 ounces of flour and leave to ferment on the counter over night. From now on you can use plain water, no chlorine or floride please. The next day add one cup of the starter to you usual bread or pancake or whatever recipe and proceed as you ususlly would. If you want a very sour dough leave the batter on the counter until the next day and then proceed with your regular method.

        You can now place your starter in a canning jar or bale lid jar or crock or whatever you decide as long as the lid is very secure. Each time you decide to use your starter take it out the day before and feed it with 4 ounces of flour and 4 ounces of water and then use a cup of the starter in your batter the next day. Some recipes can be made with a half cup of starter, if that’s what you plan to use feed 2 ounces of flour and 2 ounces of water, total amount 1 half cup. Some times it’s good to take your starter out of the fridge and feed it 8 ounces of flour and 8 ounces of water and then just leave it sit on the counter, covered for a day or day and a half. Helps the fermentation process.

        Hope I didn’t leave anything out. Questions please ask.

        1. preparednana
          Thank you for sharing your recipe and along with the site which you purchase your grains.

  24. For survival cooking , I would do what I do on comping trips:

    Quickbreads using self rising flour that I would make using all purpose flour and adding my own baking soda, salt and baking powder. It is easier to travel with and fast to rise under a wide variety temperatures in a field kitchen. Regular flour can be used for breading fried foods and that sinfully rich white gravy made from country sausage and pan drippings. I learned to make pan gravy from a guy from Alabama.

    For portability, I would make muffins and biscuits. For speed, I would make pancakes.

  25. Timely topic… I just harvested my (1st and experimental) Spring wheat crop. 2 Cups (less than a pound) of Hard Red Wheat planted in a 4×8 raised bed yielded 7 cups wheat berries + 2 cups used to reseed same plot as Winter wheat. (note, yields would have been better if the deer had not decided to that Wheat (and oats!) make excellent bedding spots! Have to do something about that next year..

    Bought 5 pounds from Palouse Farms in Washington State (non-irradiated) to use for seed and making bread (both experiments as success!) I have a local Amish store here selling 50 Lbs of Hard Red for $28 but I don’t know if it’s Irradiated or not, but for $28, it’s worth it to see if it sprouts!

  26. Folks, don’t forget Irish Soda Bread. I was just perusing my Nanny’s old cookbook (hand written) and found her recipe. Mostly she made corn bread or hoe cakes but she did make Irish Soda Bread and it used soda instead of yeast.

    2. preparednana
      It would be nice to see the recipe she created. On the other you were kind enough to share, thank you.
      That was one of the recipes my mom had from my aunt that we lost, and you are the first person that had the instructions. Bet your recipe was as very old around early 1900’s(& older) passed down thru each generation.

    3. Her recipe is pretty simple with only 4 ingredients. It was baked in a high sided cast iron skillet with a lid, at 400 degrees. I think it was the same skillet she used to fry chicken. Yes, they used a wood stove when dad was growing up but by the time I got there they had a gas stove.
      4 cups flour,
      2 cups of buttermilk or sour milk
      1 1/2 tsp baking soda
      1 1/2 tsp salt
      Mix flour, soda and salt together, make a well in center, add most of milk. Start mixing gently, adding more milk as needed for a bread consistency. Knead very little, form into a round shape, brush the top with a little milk and put in cast iron skillet, score with a X and cover. Bake for about 30 minutes, remove lid and bake another 15 minutes.

      The recipe, was written with only the ingredients and temperatures. The rest I am remembering, to the best of my ability. It was my privilege to help her make whatever she made when we visited. She was a wonderful, dried up, wrinkled, shrunken old lady with gentle, gnarly hands who lived most of her life working the fields as a share cropper.

      I remember her best with her wide brimmed bonnet, in the garden or chicken coop, gathering whatever she needed. One day I was shocked to see her grab a chicken by the head, give it a twist and let it go, that chicken ran all over the yard bleeding. We had the most wonderful chicken and dumplings the next day.

      She drew water from a hand dug well at the back door and kept a bucket on the counter during the day to drink. Sanitary, probably not but the flavor was ulike anything I have ever tasted, pure spring water and no one ever got sick. She lived well into her 90’s.

      Nanny’s family grew their own wheat, to the best of my recollection it was soft white, they used the whole wheat. They grew almost everything and if it didn’t come out of their garden or coop they didn’t eat it, couldn’t afford to buy it at the store. They bartered for beef and pork. They caught crayfish and cat fish out of the local river . Variety, oh my, such variety, beans, peas both green and black eyed, beets and the greens, turnips and the greens, parsnips, collard greens, okra, tomatoes, watermelon, squash and more I’m sure. We always ate like kings when we visited.

      What fantastic memories, thanks for letting me share.

      1. Like it nana, sounds like a dutch oven type skillet. Simple ingredients to fill the belly. Going to try it. Can make sour milk by adding some white vinegar to whole milk.

        1. Mrs. U;
          I agree, I read this back in 2017 when preparednana first posted it, it still brings back good memories of “The Good Old Days”.

          Perfect recipe for a SHTF Bread for sure.

  27. I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned it but flour you’ve just milled has a much higher level of nutrition than any flour you could purchase ‘off the shelf’. Your home milled flour will have the germ, bran and endosperm complete, and there’ll be no need to “enrich it” by adding vitamins, minerals etc cause it has got all of ’em. Oh yeah, it tastes better too. So the bottom line is if you’re storing a commercially prepared product you’re selling, no make that buying, yourself short.

    You can also sprout wheat berries if you buy a quality product and produce something you can use in salads. You can grind them coarsely and put ’em it a pot with water and you’ve got cream of wheat. Why you might even be able to grow some wheat of your own from berries simply by broadcasting them on the ground. Try that with flour from the store and all you’ll get is a slightly lighter shade of mud.

    I just purchased 40 lbs of hard red wheat at around 79 cents a pound delivered. All things considered -taste-nutrition-flavor- that’s a bargain.

    There’s a learning curve to working with home milled flour and I’ve been skidding along it for almost two years now. But I don’t need a rearview mirror cause I ain’t lookin’ back.

  28. Ken,
    Thank you for re posting this, going to copy it down and stick it in my recipe folder
    I use a whole hell of a lot if flour, make bread but also pizza at least once if not twice a week, plus i bake cookies and stuff, really bad sweet tooth for that kinda stuff.
    I think i usually go through 2 50# bags a year, i do have a lot of wheat stored, hard red, soft white and hard white as well as oats and oat groats,
    Been trying to grow my own, have the space, what we lack is the weather, birds are an issue too, have millions of these little finches, once they find a field they come back every time right about when the grain is ready.

    1. My 2 loaves have 6 cups wheat flour, right now 1/2 unbleached 1/2 my ground white wheat, 1 cup oat flour and 1 cup oat bran. Yes they have a muffin top and have to be trimmed to get in the toaster. Oh well taste good with butter. I could use less if needed of course.

  29. A note on home ground flour,
    Get a sieve, not the one with a handle but actual fine mesh pastry screens, if you meticulously fine grind, sift and re grind you can get fine flours suitable for pastries or fluffy loaves of bread. I even went a step further and got a second grinder that has stone burrs vs the metal burrs in my grainmaker, the grainmaker will get it fine enough but still has some pass, the stones on my Retsel grind down to a pastry flour consistency with verry little roughage, the screens are needed to get it all sorted.

  30. A note about the different types of flour made from different types of wheat:

    From the arid regions of California where Red Wheat is grown on commercial scale for use in pasta ( mostly red wheat used for semolina.) the kernels that result are lower in levels of gluten. ( the protein that upsets the GI tract of those with celiac disease.). Gluten also binds the bread together and makes the uncooked balls of dough sticky and elastic. Red wheat does not require a lot of water to grow and can tolerate high temperatures. That is why it is grown on the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley in California. ( south of Sacramento and east/SE of Fresno.). Commercially, this goes by the nickname of hard winter wheat/red wheat. The germ of the wheat is what makes it go bad as it contains oil. ( fats go rancid or bad quickly.)

    The other type of wheat that is most popular for baking soft breads, pastries and other less chewy baked goods is made from spring wheat/ white wheat or green wheat which is grown in more temperate climates like Oregon’s Willamette Valley. It requires more moderate temperatures and lots of water to produce the best crop. This high-gluten wheat is primarily used for breads, baked goods and pastries and is the light, fluffy stuff used Gold Medal All Purpose flour.

    As a baker with a background in Agriculture, The source of the flour and the type of flour will make or break your recipe whether you are making turnovers, pie crusts, sponge cake etc. Most customers and myself like a mix of whole wheat flour with white, refined flour in order to balance the toothsome texture and flavor with lightness and fiber. Making bread from whole wheat flour only, your bread may resemble bricks.

    I learned about the different types of flour and wheat by shooting squirrels from the farmers fields. If I had a bunch of wheat that was lacking in gluten and was not turning out very good bread using yeast or sourdough starter, I would seriously consider turning it into pasta because all you need is a few eggs and a clean wood surface to form and cut your pasta on. ( extend shelf life by freezing and a pasta roller is mighty handy to have for this project.)

    If you do a lot of baking using stored flour, get yourself a sifter ( looks like a coffee-can with a screen inside and a handle on the side. There is a crank that you turn to mix the flour and the sifted flour will drop through the screen.). In a commercial bakery, we never had “pastry flour”. but I never used flour to make turnovers or croissants without sifting it first. The most common flour I saw being used within bakeries: Gold Medal All Purpose Flour.

    Baking is a Noc shift job. If you do not like people and want to work hard in a warm/hot kitchen in the cold winter months, you may enjoy this line of work. You can be an antisocial hermit butt nobody cares as long as the breads rise and the pies turn out. Great occupation for social distancing.

    I was briefly famous for my X-rated sheet cakes made for retirement parties of some government officials in Southern CA. long ago. ( police chiefs, fire captains, battalion chiefs etc.)

    Ken, sorry for talking so long. I hope people will take a look at the type of flour and wheat they are buying as all wheat and flour is not created equal. Small shriveled kernels of hard red wheat will not turn out the best croissants butt it can be used to make pasta. I would cringe at somebody using a premium product like Gold Medal All Purpose flour in order to make pasta. ( light and fluffy enough to make croissants and turnovers and your bread will rise to incredible heights.). Survive well and bake on.

  31. Not trying to be a party pooper, I haven’t had wheat bread for 4 months in my diet but I substituted my grains with wild rice. I know I missed out on the donuts, pastries, my beloved Italian spiced bread, sandwiches, pizza, and noodles, but it was an extra 35 pounds around my neck including multiple health problems along with it. I will cheat once in a while once I reach my goals, but I had to change my eating habits. I even got my dogs to crave celery lol since I eat healthier. Anyway, I store wild rice like you store wheat berries, or get the canned.

  33. Better idea, give up bread. It’s horrible for you. Go Keto, have more energy, feel healthier and simplify your preps tremendously. Gluten free breads are much easier to make and much easier to store anyways not to mention the added health benefits.

  34. Anyone have any experience with the Wheat berries from the LDS storehouse? The 25 lbs above, on Amazon, is $60 versus the 25lbs at the LDS for $17. I’m wondering what the difference is?

  35. DoubleTap,

    Some neighbors just made a trek to the nearest LDS storehouse and were kind enough to pick up some for our family. Previously, I would get some from our closest Winco. Winco hasn’t had wheatberries on the shelf when I’ve been there for the last couple of months. These bags from the LDS store seemed fine to me, and were a couple dollars cheaper than Winco. If you can get them, I’d definitely do it!

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