Yesterday I decided to do a little test.
My parents have had a couple dozens of containers of wheat in their storage for at least 25 years (no exaggeration, I remember when my parents bought this house house when I was 12, my brothers and I were in charge of carrying all the wheat to our basement storage...the wheat was old then). I have always wondered if the wheat is still good; so yesterday I decided to open one of the containers to see if it had turned into an ancient mummy or something or to see if it was still usable.
We were all a little bit apprehensive about opening a twenty-plus year container of anything so we moved forward with caution. Funny thing, my parents were EXPECTING it to not good any more (which is a conversation in and of itself). My mom told me that if it was bad I would be in charge of disposing all the wheat. I was desperately hoping it would still be good.
Wheat is simply amazing. It's nutritious, you can use it in a LOT of recipes, and man does it store. When we opened the container it was good as new. I stuck my hand in and could feel how fresh and ready to be used it was. All the grains just ran through my fingers like the finest sand in the world...it was an incredible experience. We boiled a few cups of it to make sure it was good and the grains became tender and delicious.
Then I decided to do another test.
I had never really ever ground wheat before. I found my grandmothers old grinder and brought it out. It was an old caste-iron work horse with a motor that was probably used to power someone's Model T. I had to jimmy with it a bit to get the motor running; but after ten minutes it was up and working as if the Wells Fargo wagon had just dropped it off.
I can't tell you how awesome it was to see the quality of old gadgets; so I won't even try.
I was grinding all day (well I let the grinder do all the work) and decided to write down measurements each time I completed a round of grinding. Here is a quick guide to what I found in my grinding experience.
I ground about half the storage container of wheat and it filled one of our food storage buckets (picture below). I think everybody should have the experience of making this stuff. If it were up to me I would grow, harvest, grind, and bake with only this flour for the rest of my life. Not for some tree-hugging weirdo reason, but just to realize that all of the good stuff we have in life does not necessarily need to be purchased. Give it a try; if your parents are anything like mine I'm sure they have some extra wheat that needs to be tested or rotated. It might be a bit hard to find a grinder but do whatever you can to find it, it is such a revealing experience.
This morning I made some pancakes out of the wheat we ground yesterday and it was great. Enjoy the picts!
My dad says this can of wheat might be 35 years old. To be safe, I am saying 25 years cause that's how long I remember them being around.
Joseph stored it for seven years, my parents stored it for 25.
It's a beautiful experience to handle raw wheat.
Simple design, built to last. They do not make them like they used to. (The bungee cord was just to keep it on the base)
The hopper will fill up to about 8 cups of wheat.
The white container is the flour, we've already used a bit since yesterday but you can see that 1/2 container of wheat yields almost a whole container of flour.
While I am posting this my mom is making some bread using ONLY the flour we ground yesterday. You can see how supple and lite the dough is. This will make about 4 loaves of bread.
My parents have had a couple dozens of containers of wheat in their storage for at least 25 years (no exaggeration, I remember when my parents bought this house house when I was 12, my brothers and I were in charge of carrying all the wheat to our basement storage...the wheat was old then). I have always wondered if the wheat is still good; so yesterday I decided to open one of the containers to see if it had turned into an ancient mummy or something or to see if it was still usable.
We were all a little bit apprehensive about opening a twenty-plus year container of anything so we moved forward with caution. Funny thing, my parents were EXPECTING it to not good any more (which is a conversation in and of itself). My mom told me that if it was bad I would be in charge of disposing all the wheat. I was desperately hoping it would still be good.
Wheat is simply amazing. It's nutritious, you can use it in a LOT of recipes, and man does it store. When we opened the container it was good as new. I stuck my hand in and could feel how fresh and ready to be used it was. All the grains just ran through my fingers like the finest sand in the world...it was an incredible experience. We boiled a few cups of it to make sure it was good and the grains became tender and delicious.
Then I decided to do another test.
I had never really ever ground wheat before. I found my grandmothers old grinder and brought it out. It was an old caste-iron work horse with a motor that was probably used to power someone's Model T. I had to jimmy with it a bit to get the motor running; but after ten minutes it was up and working as if the Wells Fargo wagon had just dropped it off.
I can't tell you how awesome it was to see the quality of old gadgets; so I won't even try.
I was grinding all day (well I let the grinder do all the work) and decided to write down measurements each time I completed a round of grinding. Here is a quick guide to what I found in my grinding experience.
- 8 cups of wheat will yield 12 cups of finely-ground flower in 45 minutes.
- 8 cups of wheat will yield about 9 cups of coarsely-ground flower in 5 minutes.
- 8 cups of wheat will yield 11 cups of medium-ground flower in 20 minutes.
- If you grind the course flour (which is a bit too coarse to be used in baking) it only takes it 20 minutes to grind that flour down to fine flour (total time from wheat to fine = 25 minutes).
I ground about half the storage container of wheat and it filled one of our food storage buckets (picture below). I think everybody should have the experience of making this stuff. If it were up to me I would grow, harvest, grind, and bake with only this flour for the rest of my life. Not for some tree-hugging weirdo reason, but just to realize that all of the good stuff we have in life does not necessarily need to be purchased. Give it a try; if your parents are anything like mine I'm sure they have some extra wheat that needs to be tested or rotated. It might be a bit hard to find a grinder but do whatever you can to find it, it is such a revealing experience.
This morning I made some pancakes out of the wheat we ground yesterday and it was great. Enjoy the picts!
-Eric-
My dad says this can of wheat might be 35 years old. To be safe, I am saying 25 years cause that's how long I remember them being around.
Joseph stored it for seven years, my parents stored it for 25.It's a beautiful experience to handle raw wheat.
Simple design, built to last. They do not make them like they used to. (The bungee cord was just to keep it on the base)The hopper will fill up to about 8 cups of wheat.
The white container is the flour, we've already used a bit since yesterday but you can see that 1/2 container of wheat yields almost a whole container of flour.
While I am posting this my mom is making some bread using ONLY the flour we ground yesterday. You can see how supple and lite the dough is. This will make about 4 loaves of bread.
Comments
Ironic that just today my Mom gave me her old mixer that has a wheat grinder attachment and I was asking her about how to grind wheat.
That bread dough looks super!