should we be buying superpails?
 

So I could buy rice or wheat berries and then repack it with mylar bags and oxygen obsorbers or would it be easier to just buy superpails and stack a few up.

I'm sure similar posts have been made but I want to ask a few questions, these are tough questions and I would love to here some tough answers from the experts....

1. Can I trust a manufacturer to pack the superpails properly?

2. What is the shelf life of a superpail? rice or wheat berries for example.

3. As much as I would love to own a country living grain mill, I can't afford it, should I still buy wheat berries if I can't afford a mill? How else can I use them?

4. Should I get superpails or #10 cans and why????

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

Yes, places like Walton's Feed will pack a superpail professionally.

What would you do with wheat berries if you can't afford a mill? You going to pound it into flour with rocks?

You can sprout them, they are actually more nutritious that way, but really, I wouldn't buy 300 lbs if you aren't going to be baking. A couple of #10 cans is all you would want.

Wheat, white rice and corn, when stored properly, can last up to 30 years and still retain some nutritional value. Personally, I wouldn't want to keep it that long without rotating and if you are storing food that you eat, you *should* be rotating it.

DON'T BUY WHAT YOU DON'T EAT.

7 mitakes of Food Storage- http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/tate55.html

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

So I do bake my own bread, quite often. But growing a field of wheat isn't really in the cards. I just don't own enough land. I can buy a cheaper hand mill. I just can't afford the all famous country living mill. I need thrifty ideas, that's all

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

Actually an easy way to cook wheat berries (most whole grains for that matter) is in a thermos. Put wheat berries in a thermos and add boiling water, put the cap on and let "cook" for 3+ hours. The problem is getting the berries out. It would be best if you could find something with a wide mouth.

How to Cook Whole Grains

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

Do you own a blender? You can probably use it to make enough flour for a loaf of bread. I read that in one of my survival books. I have used mine to make oat flour. So if you have a generator you could run the blender to make flour. Just a thought....

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

You could buy superpails or #10 cans of wheat/rice if you didn't want to have to seal the stuff up yourself. For rice especially, this convenience will cost you. You should be able to get a 50# bag of white rice at the local Sam's Club or Costco for ~$20-$25. A superpail of rice is $56 from Emergency Essentials. $30 is $30!

Even from ldscatalog.com, #10 cans of rice are pricey. $44 for (6) #10 cans of white rice, 32.5 lbs total.

Unless you have a local source of good wheat, it may make more sense to buy prepackaged wheat. A superpail of wheat is $47 for 48# of grain. The ldscatalog.com website sells (6) #10 cans of red winter wheat for $30.50 for 33 lbs of grain.

Consider shipping charges when getting your grain. Honeyville Grain and Wheat Montana charge for shipping. Emergency Essentials has a flat $12 charge per order. The ldscatalog.com website ships stuff for free.

If you want a cheap source for 1 gal 7 mil thick mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, and a source for cans of the grains (wheat/rice/pinto beans/oats), see the ldscatalog.com website:

www.ldscatalog.com
click on "welfare services", then click on "home storage"

Depending on where you'll be storing your "stuff" cans may work out better than pails. If you're looking to use the stored grain on a regular basis (recommended), then opening up a can will give you ~1 gal of grain to use, versus having to use up 5 gal of grain out of a pail.

If you go with pails, DO NOT store them where they'll be exposed to lots of direct sunlight. The UV will make the plastic brittle, resulting in cracked/leaking/ruined pails when you try to lift them.

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

Don't buy wheat unless you have a mill or its pointless. Also dont rely on a hand mill or you will be very, very sorry. It's an enourmous amount of work just grinding it, let alone kneading it. Save yourself hundreds of hours of hard work with an electric mill, and use a handmill for back up, otherwise you'll likely never use use the wheat (IMO). If you cant afford a decent mill, store grains that dont need one (Pasta, Oatmeal, Rice, etc).

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

I wouldn't go quite that far. Wheat can be added to soups, it can be heated in water to expand and soften it(not the best but edible and just as nurishing).

Is a hand grinder work? Duh!!! But everybody really likes hot fresh bread and pancakes and toritillas. And eating bowls of hot wheat porrige gets old, especially if you don't have sugar to put on it. Dad ate that a lot on the farm back in the 30's, or so he says

As one of your survival foods wheat is hard to beat. More nutrients than white rice, or corn. Easier to process than oats.

Magpie mentioned sprouts---very important!!!!!

The advantage of cans over pails is the cans will survive earthquakes and tornados as they can handle impact and crushing better. Pails are much cheaper.

s

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

You wouldn't happen to have a Bosch mixer, would you? There is a grain mill attachment for that.

If you are willing to grind by hand, then get the mill you can afford. I've got a Family Grain Mill: http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/fam...ain_mills.aspx and I have the grain mill attachment for my mixer so I have back up.

Whatever mill you buy, check to see if they sell replacement parts so you don't have to buy a completely new mill if you break something or wear it out.

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

Have you ever actually tried this method? We have.... yeah, the wheat berries could be eaten, but they left a LOT to be desired. We decided it would be a "last resort" option for us.

Sprouted wheat gave us a much more edible result. Sprout the wheat like any other seed and then get creative... vinegar or some sort of light dressing, chopped veggies, pine nuts, herbs... think pasta salad except healthier. It makes a very filling side dish or even main course.

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

I agree -- it takes physical effort to grind 3 cups of flour. But I can get the job done in around 10 minutes. So if I bake a loaf of bread every week (and I do) it'll take me more than 23 years to add up to 200 hours of hard work. And a little exercise isn't going to kill you.

So I'd recommend getting the hand-powered mill first because the electric mill will be useless if the grid goes down. Then, if the effort is too much, buy the electric mill for convenience and sleep soundly knowing you'll still be able to eat bread even if TS really HTF.

As for buying superpails, I have more confidence in the professional job the folks at Walton Feed do than I have in my own abilities sealing mylar bags.

And for those of you who don't like whole wheat bread, buy some 1/2 gallon canning jars and store all-purpose, unbleached flour with O2 absorbers. No, it won't keep 30 years. But I'm betting a long time, if you keep it cool and in the dark. I have 25 pounds stored that way.

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

There are also attachments for the KitchenAid mixer:
http://www.spoilthecook.com/bosch/Fa...tchen-Aid.html

There are many grinders available, so you should be able to find something that fits your budget and would do the job. Google search yields pages of grain mills: http://www.google.com/search?client=...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

For my own planning, I consider the wheat berries to be "deep storage TSHTF" food. I don't really plan to rotate stock on that. It's just going down a hole along with a manual grinder "just in case".

Re: should we be buying superpails?
 

I make four loaves of bread every week. I use a Nutrimill for grinding and a Bosch Universal for mixing and kneading. (I also have the meat grinder attachment for the Bosch and use it for grinding up the deer I process myself.)

In an emergency situation, I think it would be worth using the generator to run the Nutrimill. It only takes it a few minutes to do enough flour for four big loaves. Then I would do everything else by hand. I agree it makes sense to have an inexpensive hand mill "put away" but it would truly have to be TEOTWAWKI before I would end up breaking it out.

I have about 300 pounds of various wheats stored in pails stacked up in my kitchen next to the fridge.

Gregg