Where to buy wheat to grind into flour

[trustandobey]

I'm looking to start milling my own flour. I have no idea where to buy the wheat berries. I have seen some online but it seems expensive. This is a new adventure for our family so we are looking for tricks and tips. I'm thinking about using our KitchenAid mixer with the grain mill attachment. Was wondering if anyone has one and how well does it work? Or would I be better off buying a different type of mill. We live 30 min from Lehman's hardware and have looked at their mills there but don't know if they would be better than the KitchenAid option.

[farmerDale]

Where are you located? Any wheat grown in your area? Just find a guy who grows wheat if you have anyone around. You will get it for 10 or 20% what you will pay to get some if you order it or buy from a specialty food store.

[spacecase0]

farmers are the best to get it from,
but local natural grocery stores should have it as well
are you looking for hard wheat to make bread out of ?
or soft wheat to make cookies or the like out of ?
or maybe durum wheat to make pasta out of ?

[jassytoo]

We get ours from Honeyville grain. Flat rate for shipping no matter how much you buy. If you have a farmer near you that would probably be your cheapest option. We do use a grain mill so don't know if the Kitchen Aid attachment would be up for the job or not.

[spacecase0]

I use the country living grain mill due to how well it works and lack of trust in electricity

[trustandobey]

Great advice lots of farmers around us here in N.E. Ohio. Is there a process to clean the wheat before milling?

[DW]

I use our kitchenaid all the time...works great.

[spacecase0]

Originally Posted by trustandobey

Great advice lots of farmers around us here in N.E. Ohio. Is there a process to clean the wheat before milling?

I just use a screen to get the dirt out of it before I mill it, dirt does not taste that good and messes up the mill

[cc-rider]

I buy from an Amish store near Bellefontaine, but I'm sure there are tons of Amish stores in your area, too. Find the places that the Amish shop...not the places the tourists shop. The berries will be cleaned and ready to use.

I buy the berries in bulk and then store in my freezer until I'm ready to grind. I only grind enough for the batch of bread. I use my Vitamix and LOVE it.

[northergardener]

Many Walmarts carry wheat berries. In our store it is on the bottom shelf by the flour.

[Laura Zone 10]

BING:

Prairie Gold Hard White Spring Wheat / WALMART + your area.

[Ramblin Wreck]

The Mormon Church used to sell wheat berries on-line, but I'm not sure if they still do. You do not have to be a Mormon to purchase it. I also found a few five gallon buckets of berries on Craigslist from a bakery that was going out of business.

[thestartupman]

Walmart.com sells 26 lb containers for $15.28. They have free shipping if you order more than $50. Sams Club also has it in 40lb buckets for $38.98 with free shipping.

[sniper69]

Many super walmarts sell bronze chief hard red wheat and prairie gold hard white wheat in 25 lb bags.
Here is a link for the Prairie Gold (you should be able to enter a zip code for your area to see if any local walmarts have it in stock) http://www.walmart.com/ip/14122834?w...tRedirect=true

For the Bronze Chief - same thing as above. Here is a link for that http://www.walmart.com/ip/14150163?w...tRedirect=true

Or if you want it in buckets - walmart sells Augason farms brand (both hard white and hard red). Free shipping if $50 or more is bought (and it can be purchased online to ship to your house). Here is the link for the hard white wheat http://www.walmart.com/ip/Augason-Fa...26-lb/22001478 and for the hard red wheat http://www.walmart.com/ip/Augason-Fa...6-lb/22985145?

I have all 4 types of wheat from walmart - and when I consider the cost of buckets - the augason farms is more affordable from a storage standpoint. The prairie gold wheat makes excellent bread, etc.

LDS (mormons) was mentioned earlier. Here is the link to buy from them (even if non-LDS) http://store.lds.org/webapp/wcs/stor...7_-1_N_image_0 They sell it in #10 cans (along with other items). Or if you live near one of the LDS Home storage centers - you can go and buy from there (even as non-LDS) http://providentliving.org/self-reli...-form?lang=eng

A link for honeyville is http://shop.honeyville.com/products/grains/wheat.html

If you are looking for spelt - http://smallvalleymilling.com/index....=order-product or also at http://highstakesfarming.com/shop.html

Also for the Prairie Gold or Bronze chief (or other wheat montana items) you can sometimes find a local place that will sell in bulk (i.e a co op). There is one about an hour from me - if I want to buy large quantities of the wheat montana brand. An example of one place is at http://www.wheat-n-things.com/grains...t-berries.html

As for a grain mill - I would recommend reading up on the Kitchen Aid grain mill. If I remember right it can sometimes cause issues with the Kitchen Aid getting quite warm, not as fine of a grind as one may want, etc. I'm going from memory, but seem to remember some of those things when I was doing my research.

I ended up going with a Country Living Grain Mill. That was the one that I felt would stand up to lots of use, and was within my budget. I had also considered the Diamant grain mill - but the price, was well......more than I was able to spend.

Whatever grain mill you decide on - whether electric or manual - my suggestion is to research and find one that will work for you. IIRC, there are some comparison charts out there that show a side by side of the various grain mills.

Hope this helps.

[Phil V.]

Lehman's out of Kidron, Oh. carries wheat for grinding.

[Harry Chickpea]

http://shop.honeyville.com/products/grains/wheat.html

I'll second Honeyville. They are where I just bought gluten, which is becoming increasingly hard to find. IMO, keeping a full-service bakery supply going is more important than saving a dollar or two and feeding Wal-mart.

[manygoatsnmore]

I just buy whole wheat at the feed store. Sometimes you have to pick through it a little more; sometimes it's as clean as wheat purchased from a "human" store. Comes from the same grain elevators. The only thing is that it doesn't always say what type of wheat it is on the label. You can grind some and experiment to see if it bakes better bread or pastry to determine if it's hard or soft wheat. If you wanted hard wheat and find yourself with soft, just add some dough enhancer (gluten) to help with the rise.

Feed store wheat is less than half the price of grocery store or on-line sources. Your local farmer is your best bet if you can't grow a patch of wheat for yourself, but the feed store is another inexpensive option.

[Marilyn]

I live near a Walmart, but Honeyville Grain is still my first choice. Very reasonable flat rate shipping, I usually buy 100-200 lbs at a time. I freeze-treat wheat when I get it (a couple of days in the freezer, then out, then back in the freezer 2 wks later for any possible residual insects. Have never had any insect issues from Honeyville, I just do it as a matter of course. It's much easier to get it in and out of the freezer in its original packaging Then you can store your wheat in a dedicated plastic trash can with a tight fitting lid.

If you happen to mill more wheat than you can use for any particular recipe, freeze any remaining flour or it will oxidize and you will be left with the stuff you could pick up at the grocery.

As you are getting accustomed to milling and baking with fresh wheat, bread wheat is hard red or hard white. Cake/cookie/pancake wheat is soft white (common), or soft red (rare). The best pasta wheat is durum, but I like soft white also. Indiana wheat is extremely SOFT, so soft that it can be difficult to mill.

If your family isn't accustomed to eating 100% whole wheat baked goods, be sure to start out with a 50/50 blend of whole wheat to unbleached white flour. It will be easier on everyone's digestive process, and then once everyone is on board, you can gradually increase to 100% whole wheat.

I use a Diamant mill that DH has outfitted with a small motor. It can easily be reverted to hand operation should the need arrive. Luckily, I purchased this one about 10 years ago, I saw that the price has just gone crazy.

You will be amazed at the increased flavor and fragrance of freshly milled wheat. As you make your decision about a mill, be sure that you will be able to grind corn also. Cornbread!

[COWS]

Wheat for flour must not have wild onion seed in it, makes the bread taste terrible. Farmers prevent wild onions or wild garlic by spraying with herbicides, 2, 4d being the old standby, at least in the southeast. If you grow your own in a SMALL patch you can harvest by hand and avoid the wild onions.

Threshing by hand: basically forget it. In early times people would level off a section of hard packed dirt, pile the harvested wheat on it, and walk cattle around on it to thresh the grain. Bible references: "muzzle not the ox that treadeth the corn", King James version of the bible, referring to an idea that the working cattle deserved a bite now and then. Also, King David bought somebody's threshing floor to build the Temple on.

After the grain was threshed, it was cleaned by taking forks, no doubt the wooden kind, and throwing the straw, chaff(husks around the seed) into the air. The wind would blow the straw and chaff to one side and the heavier clean grain would fall in a pile. Obviously, this needed to be done on a dry, windy day.

Threshing by hand was done by piling the wheat one the ground and beating it with flails, which were two fairly long sticks tied end to end together with leather thongs. I estimate a no mare than a 2 foot thong. Then it was thrown into the air as described above.

My daughter tried some wheat in her garden and I generously tried threshing it. It was a very time consuming process for a small amount of wheat. Made good bread, however.

Europe in the Middle Ages: Peasant lived on some "lord's" estate and paid rent in the form of a share of the crop. To get more income, the lords required that the peasant's wheat be ground at the lord's mill. Private ownership of small hand mills was outlawed and the lord's men would occasionally go around and search the peasant's home, confiscating the had mills, called Querns. A little Google search on the subject might be interesting. Monasteries had land and had the same sort of set up to control the peasants and get more money, well, actually the millers charged a percent of the crop, 10-15 % I think, for the milling. At any rate one monastery in Northern Europe had confiscated a bunch of querns and floored a room with them. During a period of unrest the peasants raided the room and took up the floor, putting the querns back in use.

COWS

[farmerDale]

Originally Posted by thestartupman

Walmart.com sells 26 lb containers for $15.28. They have free shipping if you order more than $50. Sams Club also has it in 40lb buckets for $38.98 with free shipping.

That is nuts! Farmers sell their wheat for maybe 6 or 7 bucks a bushel, which is 60 lbs. That is why I asked for location. Most areas have someone who grows wheat...