How then, do we move backwards? How does a society, with most of the people having no clue of future events, move from being dependent on a vast and intertwined network of goods and services produced by the indigenous people of whereever, to a local resource and renewable energy based society, and do so in the timeframe available (20-30 years using the most liberal extimates, 10-20 with resonable estimates, 5-10 with worst case scenarios), all the while prices on everything increasing, world politics getting more militaristic, governments continuously reducing civil liberties, shortages of goods on the market and weather patterns resembling bad Hollywood movies?
Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 1147 Location: western Wisconsin
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:01 pm Post subject: Re: [Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?
frankthetank wrote:
Jim-
Is that at a feed mill or a coop??? I haven't looked here in La Crosse, but i've never come across any place selling 50# bags of wheat berries. What did those bags cost you 10 years ago??
Whats your favorite potato variety? I grew some oddball type i picked up somewhere and my yield sucked! Local store has 50# bags right now for $5.88!
The prices were through a buying club supplied by a Madison warehouse, that supplies many co-ops. I think it was $8 or so for 50# some years ago--but I don't remember exactly how many years!
Favorite potato--that's like asking me what my favorite beer is! Among our favorites are French Fingerling, Rose Gold, and German Butterball. Potatoes are my wife's specialty, though, and mostly I eat them. Some varieties did very well this year, and others got rain at bad times, I think, and didn't produce as well as we expected. After growing our own potatoes for many years, we find we don't really care for most store bought non-organic potatoes--seems to be a noticable difference in most varieties.
Joined: May 06, 2006 Posts: 811 Location: Tustin, CA
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:22 am Post subject: Re: [Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?
dsula wrote:
SILENTTODD wrote:
I myself am learning all I can about raising and storing varieties of Potatoes. They can be grown in almost every region of temperate climate, come in a large number of varieties, and are easily cooked or eaten raw.
They are easily grown, are full of vitamins and nutrition. And is probably the most food productive crop there is for a small amount of land.
What about bugs? You never had any problems with them? Potatoes are not that easy to grow in my experience (without pesticides that is).
Lot of good responses since I last looked at this. Will defiantly check out King Harry Potatoes this next growing year!
As far as bugs that attack potatoes here in Southern California. The only serious varmints I’ve had are green looping worms, which I think are commonly called cabbage worms. They are the larval stage of a moth.
Until I found an insecticide that was effective, I use to hunt them down under the leaves and cut them in half with a pair of scissors!
My grandmother had about 25 to 30 chickens on her farm, free ranging her garden. She claimed they took care of all the bugs. I personally saw them eyeing every plant in their forays for any worm or bug they could find. Sounds like a perfect symbiotic relationship; you get eggs and meat from the chickens, they get bugs and protection from predators.
She had a big well fed dog that had no interest in the chickens, but would have given his life defending them and the property. _________________ Skeptical scrutiny in both Science and Religion is the means by which deep thoughts are winnowed from deep nonsense-Carl Sagan
Joined: Nov 20, 2006 Posts: 120 Location: Tasmania
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:41 pm Post subject: Re: [Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?
Flour should keep for a few years at least - more if you freeze it or vacuum pack it - I vacuum pack lots of my nuts/beans/flour products and they then will keep at least 1-2 years post use by date, and almost indefinitely for grains.
Potatoes also - I grow organically and I have no problems at all with bugs or disease (touch wood). Potatoes grow everywhere for me - I have feral patches (where seed potatoes rolled away into the undergrowth when I was harvesting), field potatoes, potatoes in bins, growing in plastic bags, plastic bins and two of my compost bins are full of maturing potatoes that grew from rotten spuds. I can even grow them over winter with some heavy frosts and the odd flurry of snow (but no deep freezes).
Joined: Nov 20, 2006 Posts: 120 Location: Tasmania
Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 1:02 pm Post subject: Re: [Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?
I've never had a problem with it. I do, however, not freeze flour as flour, but in big bulk pre-prepared mixes (for instance I make a white sauce mix with butter and milk powder and flour, and a scone mix with butter and flour, and a crumble mix with butter and flour and sugar, and a pastry mix with salt, butter and flour) that I store in big bins and drag out whenever I want to make white sauce, or a pastry, or something to do with scones, or whatever.
So while I have flour in the kitchen which I use for bread and odd jobs, I cycle flour from storage bins (where it might stay 2 years) in my scullery into pre-made mixes which go into the freezers and which easily stay there for about 6 months before I go through one mix and need to make another. I never have any problems with it. I know of others who vacuum pack flour and freeze it without problem.
For me the mixes work well - a good way to store both butter and flour and milk powder and they work well to make excellent pastries etc (depending on what you are making with them you would add sugar or savories or milk or whatever and just mix up).
Joined: Sep 30, 2004 Posts: 975 Location: On one of the blades of the fan
Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 7:20 am Post subject: Re: [Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?
On the recommendation of people here I bought a wheat mill off eBay.
Inc postage I reckon ebaying from Canada will save me 15 quid.
It's the Back to Basics manual model. The powered ones seem very expensive, and of course will not necessarily be the best thing to have in a declining energy environment.
Incidentally I went into a couple of Posh Kitchen Appliances shops, and they didn't have a clue what I was talking about, or recommended a coffee grinder (which is NG as we have already established).
I found a couple of UK online vendors, but the idea of grinding your own flour is definitely a bit way out for here
Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:35 pm Post subject: Re: [Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?
I happened to be talking to a guy working on tearing down an old flour mill last night. He said it hadn't been used in 20 years. He knocked down a large tub on stilts and found it was full of flour and sent a cloud for blocks into the small town. All still good flour after 20 years.
Joined: Nov 20, 2006 Posts: 120 Location: Tasmania
Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:20 pm Post subject: Re: [Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?
I have just bought a grain handmill - they seem to do well here in Australia, It is a hefty big model - not the kind you usually see in ebay (I had a look there and they were all to lightweight). Now to find a source of wheat.
And now I am going to ask a stupid stupid question. What kind of wheat do you buy? In terms of things like ... does it need to be hulled or not? Do bags of wheat come already minus things like husks?
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