All Purpose White Flour Storage

Long term storing of All Purpose White Flour is rarely discussed. It's like its taboo and that probably started back at Y2K where some fool said “you can't store it because it will go rancid” or cited some other internet nonsense.

Because the rumor mill said you can't long term store white flour, some people feel lost or left out of proper food storage and having familiar baked goods to eat during disaster times. The worst time to be eating foods you don't like or have to do without is during a disaster.

Well, good news! I looked into this rumor years back and sure enough it is Bull Flop! True it doesn't store 30 years but it does store 10 years!! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) sells it in #10 cans with an oxygen absorber sealed inside and states it is good for 10 years. So that opens the door to us using Mylar Bags with absorbers sealed inside to get the same shelf life.

I also found that the older flour may gain a very slight off-odor. This can be removed by sifting the flour to reintroduce oxygen back into the flour that the Oxygen Absorber removed.

So there you go, store away! Follow good long term storage methods and procedures and you'll be eating just like normal during the worst of times.

Below is the exact copy of the email that the LDS Store people sent me when I questioned the long term storage of white flour:

"GSC-HelpLDSStore

To:

Me

Dear Mike,

Thank you for your email regarding the storage life of White Flour.

The flour is good for only 10 years for storing.

Thank you,

Annette, Global Service Center"

Link to retail LDS Store:

http://store.lds.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product3_715839595_10557_3074457345616706370_-1__3074457345616897723

Here’s how I store My All Purpose White Flour

I practice post SHTF baking most every weekend. Sometimes using the home electric oven, sometimes the propane camp stove with a Coleman Camp Stove Oven and lastly using my Rocket Stove with the Coleman Oven on it.

I normally bake breads but sometimes just baked goodies like cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls etc. On average during non-disaster times I’ll go through 25 lbs every 4-5 months.

Over the years I’ve tried many different ways of storing flour but this is what I found to be the best way and is what I use today.

• For 10 plus years store in Mylar with Oxygen Absorbers in 5 gallon buckets.
• For about 2 years of daily use simply pour the flour into a sanitized 5 gallon bucket with a Gamma Seal Lid.
  
  

In this photo is what I find best for daily flour use, a 5 gallon bucket with a Gamma Seal Lid. If you look close you can see in the top-center of the flour a slight impression from the Gamma Lid when it was screwed on. In this bucket is the entire contents of a 25lb bag of flour. Perfect!

How much bread can you bake from a 5 gallon bucket of flour?

• A 25lb bag or a 5 gallon bucket full of All Purpose Flour will produce 26 loaves of bread. (3 cups flour per loaf)
• If Home Milling Wheat Grain, Hard Red or Hard White into flour a 5 gallon bucket of wheat grain when milled will produce 40 loaves of bread. (2 cups grain after milling produces 3 cups flour)

Just a caution about depending on milling your own flour from wheat grain:

• A common issue with living off home milled wheat grain (red or white) is some people, adults myself being one and some children honestly can't eat a full-time diet of it because they get nauseated from it. These people need some All Purpose White Flour to bake with.

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

Wheat Grains Explained

Wheat Grains Explained

What Kind of Wheat Grain To Buy for Prepping and Everyday Baking?

This is a very common question!

I began prepping about a year before Y2K. Beginning any prepping during that time was difficult and for me it had far more questions than answers. There were very few trustworthy information sources for us to use. Normally I search the web for the information I need mostly going directly to the manufacturer or Universities. The problem with some personal web sources and forums you will find that the posting author doesn't even own a grain mill or store any grain but yet claim to be an expert. This is very sad that people would pass along untested and sometimes unsafe methods that will mislead families trying to provide for themselves.

Which Wheat Grain do I buy?

Well, after many trials and errors the grain I use to bake bread and all bread items with every week and also keep several years worth in long term storage is a Non-GMO "Hard White Spring Wheat" purchased from Honeyville Grains. Many retailers sell similar grain I just happen to like Honeyville and their customer service. Hard Red bakes the same but the Hard White is a little milder tasting so it doesn't for some people cause an upset stomach. This is another reason for you to buy hard red and hard white in small quantities like #10 can of each and test bake each to be sure YOU and your FAMILY can eat it without having an upset stomach. During a crisis is no time to find out you can't eat your stored food.

The following wheat grain information is from King Arthur

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/flours/learn-more.html

Wheat varieties

Hard or soft, red or white, winter or spring. After eons of farmers and then scientists isolating and encouraging the genetic development of more “user friendly” characteristics, there are over 30,000 varieties of wheat today, each with its own merits. Most simply, we can classify current wheat varieties as some combination of each of the following: hard or soft, red or white, winter or spring.

Hard wheat

Has a higher protein content than soft wheat and thus produces more gluten, the elastic component of a dough that can capture and hold carbon dioxide (CO2). Therefore, hard wheat is critical for yeast-leavened baked goods, but is also appropriate for a wide range of baking.

Hard winter wheat

Is planted in the fall, mainly in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and other prairie states. It grows until it's about five inches tall, and then with the onset of winter and cold weather, it becomes dormant under snow cover, and continues growing the following spring. It's harvested in late spring and early summer. The protein content of hard winter wheat ranges between 10–12%.

Hard spring wheat

Grows predominantly in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Montana, as well as in Canada, where the climate is more severe. It's planted in the spring and harvested in late summer and early fall. Generally, the farther north you go, the more spring wheat you'll find and the greater the levels of protein—generally 12–14%.

Soft wheat

Has a larger percentage of carbohydrates and thus less gluten-forming protein. Soft wheat can be red or white, and is almost always winter wheat. Soft winter wheat is grown primarily east of the Mississippi, from Missouri and Illinois east to Virginia and the Carolinas in the South and New York in the North. There are also important crops of soft white wheat in the Pacific Northwest. Soft wheat is used to make cake and pastry flour.

Color of wheat

The color of wheat relates to pigments found primarily in the bran. Both hard and soft wheat can be either red or white. White wheat varieties simply lack the pigment that gives red wheat its dark color.

Hard red winter wheat

Has ample protein content to yield the necessary amounts of gluten, the elastic component of a dough that can capture and hold carbon dioxide (the gas produced by yeast that raises your dough) for most yeast bread baking, yet is mellow enough to use in other baked goods including muffins and scones. Planted in the fall in the prairie states, hard red winter wheat lies dormant under snow cover during the winter and continues growing until harvest in late spring. It gets its red color from pigmentation in the bran layer of the wheat berry.

Hard white spring wheat

Has a high protein content and thus is good at producing gluten, the elastic component of a dough that can capture and hold carbon dioxide (the gas produced by yeast that raises your dough). Unlike red wheat, white wheat lacks some of the pigmentation in the bran layer of the wheat berry; since that pigment carries an astringent flavor, white wheat is lighter in both color and flavor. It's planted in spring and harvested in late fall/early winter.

Hard red spring wheat

Is typically higher in protein content than hard red winter wheat and thus is very good at producing gluten, the elastic component of a dough that can capture and hold carbon dioxide (the gas produced by yeast that raises your dough), making it ideal for breads, rolls, and pizza. Planted in the spring in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana, and Canada, hard red spring wheat is harvested in late summer and early fall. It gets its red color from pigmentation in the bran layer of the wheat berry.

Heart of the wheat berry

Our white flours are milled from the innermost heart of the wheat berry, avoiding the dark mineral particles near the bran (outer layer of the wheat kernel) and germ. The heart of the berry contains the lightest color and the richest, gluten-producing protein.

Some flour producers mill closer to the bran so they can get more flour out of a bushel of wheat. Then they bleach the flour to eliminate the darker flecks of bran left in their flour, giving it the appearance of pure white flour. Yet bran left in white flour affects baking performance because its hard, sharp edges cut through gluten strands, making it more difficult to develop good structure in your baked goods.

By avoiding the outer layers of the wheat berry, we both ensure there are no particles of bran to reduce the rising performance of our white flours, and eliminate the need to bleach the flour to mask darker flecks.

Why “organic”?

We believe that providing organic products not only gives our consumers greater choice, it is also good for our environment. Supporting organic farming means embracing biodiversity, and greatly reducing or eliminating chemical toxins and environmental harm. King Arthur Flour is a leading voice in the industry in support of organic farming.

ORGANIC FARMING

King Arthur Flour is the leading grocery organic flour brand in the United States. While not all of our flours are organic, we believe consumers should have the option to choose organic products when they are commercially available. Our organic flours and mixes are growing in number as more ingredients become available and as more consumers discover their benefits.

Our organic flours are certified 100% organic. The organic wheat used in our organic flour and mixes is grown under the organic supervision of Quality Assurance International the leading organic certifier in the country.

Organically Grown EPA web site and definition:

Is food grown and processed using no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. Pesticides derived from natural sources (such as biological pesticides) may be used in producing organically grown food.

http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/torg.html

The Family Grain Mill*

This is the mill I use and recommend.

Part of any sound preparation plan is a grain mill. It is essential because your survival without bread or flour based foods like pancakes etc. will be miserable and you may not survive at all. A grain mill allows you to long term store large amounts of many different types of grains for many years to come unlike the limited time commercially milled flour will last.

I’m also a person who likes to bake so my grain mill is used weekly and if all the claims are correct the added nutrition of freshly milled complete grain kernels into flour is a plus and also knowing exactly what I have put into the recipe is far healthier than any store bought bread.

I purchased the Family Grain Mill including the Hand Base and with the optional 'adapter' for use on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer for a motorized operation. This combination allows milling with or without electricity. The mill mills coffee, wheat, rice, corn (not popcorn), oats, rye, barley, spelt, flax, buckwheat, millet, sesame and more it also cracks grain like Barley if you want to home brew beer.

There are just six parts to this grinder, very easy to disassemble for cleaning and built for durability with very high quality. This is a burr grinder, the burrs are made of hardened stainless steel and fully adjustable including index markings for repeatable settings from coarse to fine milling. Yes, it is mainly plastic but the plastic is Lexan (polycarbonate) the same plastic used in bullet-proof windows. The Family Grain Mill company has a complete line of kitchen gear such as a 'Vegetable Processor' that slices and shreds vegetables, fruits, cheeses etc., a Flaker Mill for making oat meal, a 'Meat Grinder' a 'Sausage Stuffer' and a dedicated electric powered motor to drive all these devices.

This is a very efficient machine, my milling produces three (3) cups of flour in four  minutes of hand cranking at two (2) Revolutions Per Second cranking speed (industry recommended speed) with almost no effort to turn the crank. The reason it is easy the crank is because the overall diameter of the milling burrs is half the diameter of other mills thereby requiring minimal effort when comparing to the other mills (leverage principle).

I use the Kitchen Aid mixer adapter when I mill and try to maintain the 2 RPS speed (although I have run it at full speed with no flour over heating issues). At this cranking speed the milled flour only reaches 93 degrees from kernels that are 76 degrees to start with so there is no heat degradation to the flour milled. The hopper is large and it can hold up to five cups of whole wheat kernels. The laminated wood hand crank base clamps to a table top very securely without marring the table. The hand crank is very easy to turn and is easy to continuously crank at about two revolutions per second.

For those who want to get into grain milling with a lower cost but with good quality machine this is it. The mill comes with a life time warranty, what more could you want?

My Family Grain Mill was $130.00 (2008) including the Kitchen Aid mixer adapter for motorized operation. Not a bad price when you consider it is two machines in one; I have a hand crank mill or a powered mill when there’s electricity. In just 8 minutes you can mill enough flour (6 cups) for two loaves of bread.

Wheat Kernels to Milled Flour Conversions:

• 2 cups wheat kernels = 3¼ cups milled flour (makes one loaf of bread)
• 1 cup uncooked wheat kernels = 2 cups cooked wheat
• 1 lb. wheat kernels = 2¼ cups wheat kernels

  

The mill mounted on the Hand Base for manual milling.

The mill completely disassembled. Very few parts and easy to clean.

The hardened stainless steel Burrs. This is what mills the grain into flour.

Mounted on my KA Stand Mixer for powered milling. They make several adapters for mounting to popular stand type mixers.

This is how I buy my wheat grain. Today I use only Hard White Wheat. It is slightly milder than the Hard Red but that's just my personal taste and opinion. Buy a #10 can of each and try it for yourself before stocking hundreds of pounds of wheat.

Hard Red Wheat kernels.

Freshly milled wheat grain into flour. It's ready to make bread.

Feed Grain and Human Consumption

This very informative article below about the dangers of eating livestock feed grain and many others can be found in the LDS Preparedness Manual, Handbook #2, 2012 Edition. Download a free copy here; www.ldsavow.com The information within is amazing, I refer to it all the time. It’s a must have 505 page how to reference book for Preparedness.

“Availability of Grains and Legumes”

By:  Alan T. Hagan

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have purchased your grains and legumes from a foods dealer then you needn’t worry about hidden mold infections, fungicides or insecticides that are unsafe for human consumption. In the U.S., the products will have been checked several times by Federal and State agriculture departments and probably by the major foods dealers as well, to ensure its quality.

This is not necessarily the case when you purchase your grains or legumes directly from the farmer or elevator operator as field-run or field-run from storage grain. Nor is it necessarily the case if you’ve made the decision to utilize grains marketed as animal feed. Inspection procedures vary from nation to nation, so if you buy outside of the U.S. inquire of your supplier.

If you are buying your grains and legumes from some place other than a foods dealer, you need to know the history of what you are buying. There is the remote possibility that field-run from storage or any grade of grain not specifically sold for human consumption may have had fumigants, fungicides or insecticides not certified as safe for human foods added while it was in the bin. It is important to know what it has been treated with before you buy it.

Straight field-run grain, other than being dirty, is not likely to have had anything added that would make it undesirable for human consumption. There is, however, the also remote possibility it may have been infected with fungi that would make it unsafe for eating.

One of these fungal infections of grain is called “ergot”. This fungal disease affects the flowering parts of some members of the grass family, mostly confined to rye. Consuming the fungus causes a nervous disorder known as St. Anthony’s Fire. When eaten in large quantities the ergot alkaloids may cause constriction of the blood vessels, particularly in the extremities. The effects of ergot poisoning are cumulative and lead to numbness of the limbs and other, frequently serious, symptoms.

The fungus bodies are hard, spur like, purple-black structures that replace the kernel in the grain head. The ergot bodies can vary in size from the length of the kernel to as much as several times as long. They don’t crush as easily as smut bodies of other funguses. When they are cracked open, the inner broken faces can be off-white, yellow, or tan. The infected grain looks very different from ordinary, healthy rye grains and can be spotted easily. Ergot only rarely affects other grains and will generally afflict rye only when the growing conditions were damp. If you purchase field run rye, you should closely examine it first for the presence of ergot bodies. If you find more than a very, very few pass up that grain and look elsewhere.

Ergot is typically not a problem in the U.S and is easily spotted when it does occur. Other grain fungi, however, are much harder to spot and also have serious consequences should they be consumed. The various species of Aspergillus and Fusarium molds can be a problem almost anywhere.

Animal feed grains or seed grain/legumes are widely available and there are those who want to consider using these 94 sources. Keep in mind that animal feeds are typically dirtier than food grains and may have a higher contaminant level than what is permissible for human consumption. The USDA allows the sale of grain or legumes for animal feed that could not be sold for direct human food use. It may even be mixed varieties of one grain and not all one type. In the case of feed wheat it may have an acceptable protein content but still make miserable raised bread so try milling and baking with a small amount before you put a lot of it away. Seed grains, in particular, must be investigated carefully to find out what they may have been treated with. It is quite common for seed to be coated with fungicides, and possibly other chemicals as well. Once treated, they are no longer safe for human or animal consumption. Be sure to inquire of your supplier. If you do purchase field-run grain of any sort, examine it closely for contamination and moldy grain. Ask the farmer or distributor whether it has been tested for mold or mycotoxin (fungal toxin) content. This is especially the case if you are buying field-run CORN, RYE, SOYBEANS or RICE. When you purchase direct from the field, you may be getting it before it has been checked. Be certain of what it is that you are buying and ask questions if you choose to go this route. Know who you are dealing with. Unless you just can’t find any other source, I don’t recommend using animal feed or seed grains for human food use.

How Much Wheat to Store?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Militia member on the move fighting for your Constitution or an ordinary citizen surviving a disaster; you need to eat in bad times. The following should help anyone who is contemplating stocking dry bulk foods for the long term, in particular wheat grain. I have been at this for a number of years and below is what I follow and its been repeatedly tested and it works for me. The information is an excerpt from one of my Survivalship Handbooks dealing with the needs of a Survivalist. Understand this ONLY DEALS WITH WHEAT GRAIN and no other grains. Hope this answers some of your questions about this subject and gets you started as we are running out of time!


How Much Wheat to Store?

This is the most often asked question about storing wheat.

My interest in Survival and Bulk Dry Food Storing made me ask the same question. How Much? I began by learning how to mill grain and bake bread with it. It took a lot of practice to get it right and I ate and still eat a lot of home made bread in the process. Once you start baking bread with your own freshly milled grain it gets addictive. I am comfortable with these minimum amounts shown below as they are based on my actual consumption of the baked goods.

Remember, here I’m talking only about ‘wheat grain’. There are other grains you need to store such as; long grain white rice, dent corn, rolled oats, pearled barley etc. The LDS Church recommends 400 lbs. of various grains such as wheat, rice, oats, etc per year per adult and I believe this to be a bit to much, 200-300 is more like it. Below I’m talking about only wheat for bread and bread items and that’s why you see a difference in the total poundage it doesn’t look at the other grains.

Simply put, you could never have too much in the way of wheat grain because there is going to be a lot of survivalists who have misjudged their food storage especially their consumption of baked goods when forced to live in a survival mode and totally depended on your personal food stocks. You may also be compelled to help out friends in need with some of your extra wheat grain.

I’m using a one year time frame for simplicity. You don’t have to buy a year’s worth to get started in long term storage but you need to start. Start with 1 month’s worth and add to it as finances allow, but get started!

The example for: How Much to Store for One Year?

• On a per person basis, in disaster times, each person in your family or group will consume the equivalent of 3-4 loaves of bread items per week!
• A single loaf of bread uses 1 lb. of grain to make a single loaf.
• So a 50 lb. bag of grain will make 50 loaves of bread or about 1 loaf a week per year.
• 2 loaves per week = 100 lbs. of wheat grain per year per person.
• Add another 100 lbs. of wheat grain per year per person that would be used for making pancakes, waffles, cookies, etc.
• So figure the equivalent of 4 loaves per week per person of wheat grain bread based items consumed or 200 lbs. per year for a reasonable minimum amount to store per person.

In summary:
200 lbs. of wheat grain is 4, 50 lb. bags or 6 buckets per adult per year. For children 4-6 years old multiply the adult amount by .5 and for 7-9 years old multiply by .75

Family Example:
2 adults plus one 9 year old and one 6 year old you will need to store: 13 bags or 19 buckets of just grain for one year’s worth of wheat grain!

Another bread consumption fact:A loaf of bread is 9 inches long, a normal slice is ½ inch thick, the end pieces are not always useable so you’re left with an 8 inch loaf which slices into 16 slices or 8 sandwiches. Now with little else to eat and in a full survival mode one adult will probably consume 2 sandwiches per day or 2 loaves per week between lunch and dinner! I see twice that amount per person when you consider making pancakes, cookies, pizza etc, etc.



Milling Wheat into Flour
You will need a grain mill. There are two types of grain mills to choose from.

A Steel Burr or a Stone mill.

Some models offer interchangeable burrs and stones.

A stone mill will mill the grain into slightly finer flour than the burr mill although the burr mill works very well. It’s what I use with good results.

If you can only afford one style then I recommend the Steel Burr mill as a first choice.

Your mill choice must be able to be used without electric power, so a hand crank option is required.

Lehman’s makes an excellent, thoughtfully designed manual cast iron burr grain mill. http://www.lehmans.com/store/Kitchen___Grain_and_Grain_Mills___Our_Best_Grain_Mill___C17B?Args

The Family Grain Mill is what I use with the manual crank and the KitchenAid adapter to power it with my KitchenAid mixer. http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/family_grain_mills.aspx