Grow your own flour?

Going off the food shortages discussions, if one wanted to grow your own grain what would you grow, and how much just to get a pound of ground flour?

Probably not thr best yeild but I've grown buckwheat in the past not for grain but fir soil building (cut ot twice a year before it goes to seed. Has otger uses beyond spul and flour as well.

A bushel of wheat produces about 60 pounds of whole wheat flour. Ohio averages 85 bushel per acre.

A bushel of wheat weighs about 60 lbs, it doesn’t produce 60 lbs of flour. I don’t know how much it does make, but there is some waste.

42 lbs of flour from a bushel of wheat, looked it up.

Since there is a lot of older folks on here, bran should be appealing.

This should help you to determine what kind. Hard red, soft red, hard white, and soft white are the most common. Bread makers seem to prefer hard red.

https://www.wheatfoods.org/resources/wheat-facts/6-classes-of-wheat/

You could pick up acorns and make acorn flour.

If you need to grind your own; it probably won't make much difference.

The key to the flour we are used to is in the milling process. Unless you invest in a bunch of screening and separating apparatuses (is apparatti a word?), you will pretty much just have whole wheat flour. You will need to learn how to bake with it. The result will probably not be what are expecting

The different types of wheat are grown in geographic areas. Grow what is traditional in your area. In the case of Ohio that would be soft red winter. it is better suited for pastries, crackers and such due to low protein. I believe for an individual, rather than a commercial bakery, it would make suitable bread. It may not rise as uniformly as what you are used to due to that low protein. You might be able to somewhat overcome that by adding gluten in the form of potato water, potato starch, store bought gluten, ginger, or who knows what. Whatever you use, you won't ever get whole wheat flour from any wheat to rise like white flour. The dough will never be elastic enough with the sharp edges of germ and bran.

BTW, we would be completely wheat independent if the moron-in-chief hadn't destroyed the industry that generates fuel for tractors and fertilizer production.

I disagree with this somewhat. While I agree you'll have a whole wheat flour as opposed to a white flour, the difference in the types of wheat have to do with the gluten content. There may not be much difference between white and red wheat but there is a definite difference between soft and hard. Soft is to be used for things like cookies, pastries, cakes, noodles or other things that to not require being risen. Soft wheat does not have enough gluten in it to rise when used in conjunction with yeast for bread making. If making bread is your goal, you need a HARD wheat, be it white or red, or else your bread won't rise.

You can disagree all you want, but if you ain't got it you can't use it. I went back and edited my post to somewhat describe what to expect baking with his local stuff.

If you just want to try to grow your own wheat and make flower go for it. But if you are doing it because you are worried about shortages then I would suggest just stocking up now and concentrate your efforts on crops that would give a bigger return with less labor. Wheat would not be to bad to grow but processing the harvest would be tedious without either investing lots of money in equipment or spending lots of time.

try corn.

Depends on where you are. We can’t grow milling wheat here.

If you are stocking up, make sure you freeze it to kill the weevil larvae.

You can use a recipe using 2 cups of oat flour to one of either whole or white wheat flour. I like the whole wheat and then use either honey or maple syrup instead of regular or even brown sugar.

Bryce

bblwi has a strong point.

If you can't get all purpose wheat flour; it's time to get creative. Whole wheat flour by itself may be good for survival, but, not for an enjoyable subsistence.

Here's a very good article I found on storing wheat. You can store wheat for over 30 years, if done properly and still have decent nutritional value in it.

https://theprovidentprepper.org/foo...so-it-is-still-delicious-31-years-later/

I bought a used Diamant D525 grain mill for $202.00, with tax from an online auction. They did not know what it was and poorly described it. They are $1350.00 new, with shipping. It was close to brand new. I was originally interested in using it to make chick starter mash, but upon researching it, found it's considered the World's best hand cranked, machine convertible, flour mill. It weighs 47 pounds.



It is extremely easy to adjust and clean. I have 2 motors I could use with it, but have not yet.

You should be able to find a used mill for a fraction of the price of a new one online.

Fresh flour tastes better.

Keith

Would 25 lbs of corn make 25 lbs of meal or grits? I think it should. Guess I could eat deer corn. Only ate field corn as a child. Did not know what sweet corn was until adulthood. If it is picked on the perfect day, it is excellent to me.

Used to BBQ chickens with dried cobs. No charcoal at my house when I was a kid. No grill either. We had a pit for pigs and chickens.

We grind up whole field corn to make corn bread, corn muffins and breading for fish, shrimp and mushrooms. I buy around 120 bushels of corn to use as feed, about every 6 weeks and use the same corn to make flour and meal.

Keith

From the Kansas Wheat website: One bushel of wheat will yield approximately 42 pounds of white flour. That means this year’s Kansas wheat crop could potentially produce 14 billion pounds of white flour.

In contrast, one bushel will yield approximately 60 pounds of whole wheat flour. The Kansas crop could yield 20 billion pounds of whole wheat flour.

A bushel of corn will give you 50 pounds of cornmeal.

Very Nice

yes

I pick up corn missed by the combine. Shell it myself and winnow it several times.
Never tried sweet corn or any special variety.
those cheap mills sold on ebay work but I'd sure like to have one like Keith C has.

just

Back in the Dark Ages at KSU, I made flour every morning in a Lab.

As i recall, the only equipment was an adjustable bench mounted grinder and lab sifter with interchangeable screens. I sure wish I owned those things today.

Now youre talking ! 60 of wheat equals 60 of WW flour . Put a few rows of Hard red spring wheat in your garden .When dry and mature clip the heads.In 5 gallon bucket with lid and small hole in it shaft with a bit of light chain ,drill fastened to shaft,will thresh for you . Try to get hard red spring ,most likely source of high protein bread wheat . Oh ,toss up on a good windy day on a sheet chaff mostly gone in the wind .don't worry of you get a little chaff in with wheat grinder you flour won't tell !