According to Carla Emery, author of The Encyclopedia of Country Living -- a book everyone should own, you need a good wheat cookbook if you plan to use home-milled wheat.

The flour you buy in stores is different from the flour you will grind from your wheat berries. It will have much more gluten. Your everyday recipes will turn out terribly if you don't take this into account.

Carla's Number One recommendation is The Amazing Wheat Book by LeArta Moulton (801-374-1858). Another good cookbook is Whole Wheat Cookery: Treasures From The Wheat Bin by Howard and Anna Ruth Beck (Hearth Publishing, Hillsboro, KS, no phone number available).

Carla's book is available from her website: www.carlaemery.com.

-- walt (longyear@shentel.net), July 09, 1999

Answers

Hi Walt:

With due respects to Carla Emery, I've been baking with home ground wheat (on again, off again) for 19 years. Other than freshly ground wheat having a better flavor and texture than supermarket "whole wheat" flour, I really have not noticed a difference -- even use the same recipies.

However, if you meant that home-ground whole wheat is different than bleached all-purpose white flour.....well, no argument there!

Anita Evangelista

-- Anita Evangelista (ale@townsqr.com), July 09, 1999.

I agree, Anita. I have been using home ground wheat for over 30 years and I have had no problems. Its different, but then so is freshly ground corn or spices or? But I use the same recipes..I guess. I have been making bread so long that I really don't have a recipe. Whatever fresh flour is left when I grind something goes into a qt jar and then into the fridge. Left over oat meal, whatever, I throw it all together and make bread. But took a lot of bread baking before I reached that level of "success everytime". Made a lot of door stops and hockey puks in my day.

Taz...who has strong hands from milking and kneading.

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), July 10, 1999.

Well I got my wheat the other night and I set up the grinder and made my first loafs of bread. I used a recipe I had used before that calls for whole wheat flour and white flour. I used more whole wheat than white for this test batch. We like the taste of whole wheat but the loafs didn't rise very well. We live in Illinois and we got soft red winter wheat instead of hard, is that the problem? No one here grows hard wheat and this came straight from the field....160 lbs for 6.00 dollars....but what do I have to do to make good bread now?

HELP! But on a good note, we had fresh green beans last night, and potatoes out of the garden. We have fresh frozen blackberries and cauliflower, broccoli and green beans frozen (we are getting a heck of a yeild from our green beans)...corn should be on the table next week, and I have herbs drying in the bedroom. The pressure canner has a problem so that will be a prority next week. Thanks, JO

-- Jo Stang (tj4261@geneseo.net), July 10, 1999.

As a bread baker of 25+ years I find that the yeast you use is very-- maybe,most--important to sucessful whole wheat bread..."store" yeast is usually not that fresh. Think of how many people you know who bake bread...or would even have a clue how to bake bread if they had to and then figure out how much yeast most grocery stores sell ! The best yeast, in my opinion, is Saf-t-Yeast--found in some groceries (if you ask they can order it for you), most health food stores or by mail at King Arthur flours. It comes vaccumn packed in 1# pkgs. so stores easily and takes w.w. bread up like magic. Takes me months to use it up but I just dump it in a canning jar and store in the frig. Just needs to be kept cool. You will be amazed at the difference...we grind our own flour and it works with the stored hard red wheat and the wheat we bought from our 80 yr. old neighbor who grows his own to keep his hand in....and he will put anyone half his age to shame with his weed-free garden ! A font of knowledge for us.

-- MUTTI (windance @train.missouri.org), July 10, 1999.

All of the above posts are very good. I'd like to point out, however, a common thread to all of them: Wheat is for making bread.

You can do much more with wheat than bake bread. And that's why you need a wheat cookbook.

The Whole Wheat Cookery book has about 30 pages of main dishes, side dishes vegetable dishes and salads using wheat.

The Amazing Wheat Book has about 60 pages on making using and storing wheat gluten which you use as a nutritious meat substitute.

Many of you probably have special cookbooks for special foods. The Zucchini Cookbook, The Pasta Cookbook, etc.

What I'm saying is that if you plan on storing and using wheat, you will benefit from owning a wheat cookbook. Or, at least check one out at your public library.

-- walt (longyear@shentel.net), July 10, 1999.

Eating large amts of wheat can trigger allergies; especially in children. Lots of other good storage foods like barley,lentils,split peas and rice. Don't forget those beans. Everyone needs to start serving meals from their storage foods now...not wait until times get bad. Children like routines and familar foods will be important for their emotional stability....and ours,too. I have those wheat cookbookds but doubt I' ever gonna make a batch of gluten and fry it up in this century or the next!

-- MUTTI (windance @train.missouri.org), July 10, 1999.

Thank you for this discussion. I have some questions and concerns along this line. I too have wheat along with other grains and beans stored. I know that flour doesn't store well.

I have made the recomendation to our church food store committee (of which I am a member) that we store whole wheat since it stores well and is cheap. There is resistance to wheat because most women today 1) don't know what to do with it (unless it is already wrapped in paper in the form of a loaf of bread) 2) are more familiar with rice and 3) there is the thinking that most recipients (of unground wheat) won't have grinders with which to grind the wheat into flour.

It seems to me that whole, unground wheat is vital to long-term storage and that the church needs to come to terms with investments in grinders, recipes, yeast and the willingness to learn how to make bread from scratch.

Some one asked me today how long wheat flour will store and I told her 1 year, maybe 2. Is this correct?

As the Lord has gifted me with prophecy, I know that we have nuclear war in our future, I have seen it. I've heard the terrible roar and have seen the mushroom cloud and I know what I will be doing on that day and afterwards. But those Americans who have stored food and water will stand a better chance of surviving.

I suppose, in the long run, it doesn't matter whether we have wheat or rice stored up, just as long as we have one or the other.

Your comments appreciated. sdb

"surely, the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." Amos 3:7

-- SDB (sdbays@intplus.com), July 11, 1999.