Post Collapse – When There Is No Bread – You Need A Flour Mill And Wheat
When: Post SHTF collapse.
Where: Your place.
Scene: There is no bread in the stores. The stores have been ransacked. You’re a prepper and have some long-term food storage… but can you make bread or biscuits?
One of the easiest ways to supplement your food storage is to have the ingredients and supplies (and know-how) to make bread.
It’s really not that difficult. But you need the right things…
Wheat (also known as Wheat Berries)
The raw ingredient to mill your own flour. Stores well.
Flour Mill
Electric and/or Hand (manual-operated) grain mill for making flour.
If the power grid is down, a hand-mill will obviously be necessary.
Other Ingredients
Water (and/or milk – real or powdered)
Yeast (or baking powder for biscuits)
Egg – optional (real or powdered)
Butter – optional (real or powdered)
Salt – optional
Sugar – optional
A means to bake
(oven, solar oven, dutch oven?, pot, etc.)
You could make simple biscuits…
2 cups milled flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 cup sugar
4 tbsp powdered butter (1/4-cup)
1 tbsp powdered egg (1 egg)
1 cup water
You could make simple bread…
3 cups milled flour
1 egg
1 1/4 cup milk (real, powdered, or even plain water)
2 tbsp. butter (real or powdered equivalent)
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. yeast
Or substitute your own recipe. It’s hard to go wrong…
The thing is, how many of you have a storage of wheat berries and how many of you have a hand grain mill?
For those of you who do have these, how many of you have actually used them and made your own bread from scratch?
Did you know that if you buy flour (wheat that has already been milled) that its shelf life is fairly short?
I ask these questions to challenge your preps. If you’re serious about food storage, you should have (among the many other items) wheat (not flour – it doesn’t store very well) packed for long term in sealed mylar bags within 5-gallon buckets (as an example), AND you should have a hand grain mill.
50-lb bags of hard red wheat can be purchased from many sources (check our advertisers on the right of this page, some of whom do stock this). Generally speaking, wheat berries will be good for at least a year if left as-is. However the shelf life will be extended to at least a decade or decades if you seal them in Mylar with oxygen absorbers and a bit of diatomaceous earth (food grade).
For the most part, there are three hand grain mills which seem to be the most popular, each of them with their own price range.
The Victorio Hand Grain Mill, originally named the ‘Back to Basics 555′, has fairly good reviews for it’s price range. (UPDATE: This is now ‘The Grain Mill’) This might be a ‘good enough’ hand grain mill for the occasional user who isn’t too concerned that the flour may not grind as fine as more expensive mills or may not hold up as well under heavy usage.
The Wonder Junior Deluxe Hand Grain / Flour Mill Hand Grain Mill, is priced mid-range, perhaps making it a good value for quality vs. price. This hand mill comes with stone heads and stainless steel burr heads to accommodate different conditions, and will apparently grind fine flour (and everything else) without issue. It’s pricey though, but will no doubt hold up to more heavy use.
The Country Living Hand Grain Mill is considered top-of-the-line and will last generations. It is built with the highest quality. It is very expensive. But it is very rugged, and sized to last a long time under heavy use. I have one of these and can attest to its build quality.
So, examine your preps having to do with making bread from scratch (with no power).