Week 14 of the 2011 Food Storage Challenge

$10 Challenge

Store 5kg of wheat or flour

$20 Challenge

Store 10 kgs of wheat or flour

Ahhh now we've come to the 'good' stuff. I LOVE hot bread. The smell of it baking especially on a Winter's morning is just wonderful. Hot bread with butter...

I personally store both wheat and flour. I dont' have a hand grinder for my wheat, but I do have a Thermomix which will grind grains (including wheat and rice!!!).

Wheat

Nutrition benefits of wheat:

You don't want to store this if you are gluten intolerant though. If stored properly, wheat will last for a very long time. We're talking over 30 years and it still being able to sprout.

I purchased a hard white wheat, which will last for a long time. The hard wheats are the best ones to use for bread making. Soft wheat is used for cakes and pastries however doesn't store for quite as long.

You can sprout the wheat and eat the sprouts if you need some 'green' in your diet. I have tasted 'swamp water' before and I have to say that I would need to be really desperate to drink that! It really tastes like the smell of cut grass, if you can imagine that!

Remember also that you probably don't want to switch from eating store bought flour to whole wheat flour immediately unless you are already using whole wheat in your diet. People can develop intolerances to wheat by doing this.

Ground whole wheat flour needs to be used up fairly quickly or it will go rancid - because of the natural oil it contains. Store it in your freezer and it will last longer. Simply bring the amount you want to use to room temperature and put the rest in the freezer.

Flour

All the hard work of milling has already been done for you. You lose some of the fibre but you are still able to make bread, tortillas, cakes and even pasta by using your stored flour. If stored properly, it can last a long time too.

The biggest problems with both wheat and flour are weevils. I store mine in foil pouches with oxygen absorbers and haven't had a problem yet. Weevils can't survive without oxygen. I have heard that after you have purchased your flour, if you put it in the freezer for a day or two, it will kill off any weevils that may be hiding in the flour.

Types of flour

Okay, now we're getting tricky. Usually I store just wheat flour (plain flour) but you can also store different types of flour for variety - depending on what you plan on cooking. You can store rice flour, cornflour, self-raising flour, semolina, spelt flour etc.

You have to keep all flour cool and dry. Do not store flour near onions or soap or things with a strong smell as flour will absob the smell (Mmmm soap flavoured cake!). I store plain flour and baking powder so I can have self-raising flour when I need it.