Wheat Grain Storage; White or Red

I doubt there is anyone who would disagree that during a prolonged disaster aftermath eating familiar meals is most important. To be able to bake your own survival bread from home milled wheat grain you have stored is a must have skill because bread is necessary food with any survival meal. Hard to imagine what it would be like eating SPAM for weeks out of the SPAM can with a spoon instead of having a SPAM sandwich using your home made bread.

Decision:

With so much conflicting wheat grain for storage information out there many are confused as to what to do. Are you undecided about which type of wheat grain to eat and long term store for your baking/flour needs? Here are some common facts about the two, a good way to choose one over the other and the one I prefer.

• Hard Red or Hard White Wheat Grain stores long term the same way and length of time, 30 years.

• Hard Red Wheat Grain has a stronger flavor, slightly darker appearance and for some is harder to digest.

• Hard White Wheat Grain has a softer flavor, slightly lighter in color than Red and is somewhat easier to digest but still an issue for some.

• Hard Red Wheat is slightly more nutritious than Hard White Wheat with on average has 2% more protein.

• Cost to purchase either is about the same.

Important point.

I know people who have stored wheat grain without ever tasting anything baked from it and worse they don't even have a grain mill to mill their grain into flour. Without a mill all you can do with this grain is pressure cook it and eat it like rice. Hopefully they have a pressure cooker! By the way a pressure cooker is another must have prepper meal cooking tool.

Which grain do I use and store?

Hard White Wheat Grain, period! I have experimented repeatedly using each of the Red and White grains and found every time the Hard Red is used for myself and some others it does not sit well while digesting. This could be a food disaster if depending on the grain for survival food and when needed the family gets sick from it and doesn't want to eat anymore of it. My neighbors also have the same feeling when eating the Red where White has little issues with digestion.

Summary:

• First, buy a grain mill or at the least be able to borrow one. A good mill runs around $200. I use "The Family Grain Mill" with the adapter so I can power it with my stand mixer, about $190 with adapter. To date with my mill, I have milled over 400 lbs. of grain and it still mills like new. I recommend regardless of the brand mill you buy get one that has an adapter for powered milling for when you have electricity. Hand crank milling may sound like a cool idea for a post SHTF event but it's time-consuming and after milling the first loaf is no longer fun.

• Your first purchases of grain should be in the small cans, about 1/2 the size of a #10 can. Buy one Red and one White so you can bake some bread with each and then taste it to see how you like it and if there are any digestion issues. If not then stock up by the buckets.

• After you buy a mill and grain then every weekend I urge you to practice baking bread. This new survival baking will reward you with a new self-reliant skill, flavor, texture with safe to eat preservative free food and the prepper self-satisfaction is addictive. I make my own bread nearly every weekend!

One final note:

All Purpose White Flour does store for 10 years if using Mylar and Oxygen Absorbers. So if you don't want to store wheat grain or have to buy a grain mill, storing white flower is clearly an option for you.

More about All Purpose White Flour: http://www.livingprepared.blogspot.com/2014/10/all-purpose-white-flour-storage.html