Says here wheat prices are going through the roof, due to international pressure on various export markets. That's bad news if you eat a lot of bread, like I do.
A fifty-pound sack of ground flour may seem like a lot. Hell, fifty pounds of salt or sugar is probably a lifetime supply for a middle-aged individual, because you use salt and sugar by the spoonful. You use flour by the cup, and it goes fast.
Take a look: a supermarket five-pound bag of flour will produce about four small loaves of bread. If you eat bread like I do, a loaf of bread lasts about half a week. That's five pounds every two weeks. That's living alone, mind you. Double it for a second person, double it again for two more, etc. Of course that assumes you're only using it for bread, which nobody does. Biscuits, pancakes, crackers, bagels ... the wonders of flour just never stop, including how fast it dwindles away.
But anyway that makes it simple to calculate how much bread a fifty-pound sack will produce, if you only use it for bread. Living alone, when I don't make biscuits, etc., that sack lasts me about twenty weeks, or five months. For a family of four, it'll last five weeks. Also known as not enough.
You need to protect it from damp as well as from vermin. Though in my experience flour is not very attractive to rats, they will eat it. What they don't eat, they'll shit all over. Bugs are less picky. And it's terribly vulnerable to mold, so that big sack you were putting your trust in can suddenly, while your back is turned, become a big sack of inedible glop. It's a very bad idea to just flop a couple of sacks on a pantry shelf and think you're golden. Trust me on this.
Twenty-five pounds of flour neatly fills a six-gallon food-quality bucket, so you need two to hold the contents of that one big sack. Those cool spin-on lids are very handy, at least for your working supply. If the buckets aren't forthcoming, at a minimum get yourself some of those big plastic tubs with snap-on lids. They're surprisingly good at keeping water out, though I don't guarantee them against persistent moisture. Rats certainly can chew through them, but I've been using them here for years and so far they never have. Of course tomorrow's another day; don't take that as a guarantee.
Just sayin'.
Dad Joke CCCXX
11 hours ago
9 comments:
I usually try to have at least 100 pounds of flour on hand. I get it in 25 pound sacks at the big box warehouse club. I keep the sacks in the attic in a galvanized trash can. It gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter but I have never had any spoil. When I open a sack I dump it into a 5 gallon can that I keep in the pantry. I keep lots of other stuff in large quantities also. Rice, rolled oats, and popcorn I keep in 5 gallon pails with oxygen absorber packets, since they don't have as fast a turnover as the flour does. Other item that I keep in smaller quantities are vacuum packed. That works real well to prevent bug infestation but you have to keep the vacuum bags in a rodent proof container.
Charles
You might be surprised at how much salt you use. I bought 40 lb of sausage-grade salt (very fine, no additives at all, just pure salt) in 1999 for a Y2K pantry. In 10 years I've used over 20 lb, and this is not the only salt I use. I use mostly sea salt and kosher salt for cooking, but there have been plenty of times that I've run out of those and used the Y2K salt.
That does include salt for soaking meat in brine before grilling, and for soaking cukes from the garden in brine, and for some actual sausage making, but its only for 2 people.
Since I eat a paleo-type diet, I don't eat a lot of flour or beans, but I do keep 50-100 lb stored pretty much as you suggest.
-S
I was ready that very article yesterday, had it bookmarked to do a post. Add these conditions, the constant rain causing floods in the Canadian Prairies, Ug99 and you have a recipe for a coming disaster of sorts....
You need to add sugars to your stores if you have children, they need those wheat calories and some how baked goods go faster if they are sweetened too.
I have added dries fruits, jams, sugars, honey and of course Maple syrup to mine. Of course there are wheat substitutes for bread making but it takes getting used to and soon those substitutes are as pricey as the wheat will be.
I have notice wheat go up about 100% in price in the last two years here, I have also noticed times when there are empty spaces where it is supposed to be sitting in the grocery store here too.
If you have the freezer space you can put it in the freezer for a few days and the deep temps will kill off almost all bug eggs that lay dormant in your flour..
Are you just about ready for a new shipment of Maple syrup yet Joel?
S, On the subject of salt I shouldn't speak of things I don't know. I keep an extra 25-pound sack by, though for ease of use I prefer the regular cans, but if I were using it for preserving of course I'd keep a helluva lot more and not speak so dismissively of it.
GL, I doled that wonderful syrup out like a vile miser, using it only for guests and sometimes praying for guests. Only last month I finally retired the last of it and practically buried that can with ceremony. That was some great syrup.
>>If you have the freezer space you can put it in the freezer for a few days and the deep temps will kill off almost all bug eggs that lay dormant in your flour..>>
I was going to make the same observation. After all - those bugs you may have in your cupboards have to come from _somewhere_!! I wasn't sure though where I had come across the info - glad to have TGL confirm it!
As a by the way...I store dogfood (dry type) in galvanized metal cans, and horse feed as well. Although I live in a pretty dry climate, I've found that if I don't use the feed fast enough, it tends to sweat and then mold against the inside metal can wall. As a result, I store all of the above in plastic bags inside the galvanized cans.
Not to be a panic monger or anything,but if the price of wheat goes thru the roof more and more folks are going to take out their bread makers, try their hand at making their own bread again. One thing it wouldn't hurt to stock upon if you are concerned about the price of bread is YEAST. It will keep nice in the freezer, not a bad idea to start a sour dough starter type yeast that you feed, multiply and keep alive indefinitely (some starters are reputed to be over a hundred years old and still going strong.) You can pass extras on to help friends with.
I don't have room in my freezer to freeze out the weevil eggs; Since they some in the flour..they are not laid in the flour after you get it you have to find some way to keep them dormant or even in a sealed container they will hatch. A very simple solution is to layer bay leaves in every container..4-5 leaves in the middle and 4-5 on top before you close the lid. You will never see a weevil.
On the starter, I try but I don't like sour dough that much. I love my own recipe for white bread so I am very spoiled. But for all of you who don't want to try to keep a starter alive because you don't know what to do with the extras...remember your septic tank...it loves starter
>>One thing it wouldn't hurt to stock upon if you are concerned about the price of bread is YEAST.>>
If you are a Costco member, or have a friend who is one, you might want to buy a package of yeast in their bulk baking section. I think the container is 2#, and they recently raised the price to $3.75 or so! The ones you buy at the grocery store are about $2.00 for 3 ounces (a 3 pack). Quickie math puts that as about $20 vs $4 !! It keeps well. I have a samll jar (maybe 4 oz) that I have kept on the counter at room temperature for over a year, and the rest of the package in the freezer. So far, the counter jar yeast still works fine. I always start it in warm water with about a quarter tsp of sugar - if it just sits there, it's too old. If it's still good, if starts to build a head of foam within about 10 minutes.
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