Go Green & Save Green: Grind Your Own Wheat!
I’m excited to be participating in the Go Green & Save Green Series with several other green bloggers this week! We’ll be talking about different areas of green and natural living, showing you how to go green while saving money at the same time! Be sure to check out the great links at the end of this post!
Does that sound crazy? Grinding your own wheat? A little extreme?
I wondered about it myself, until I tried it.
Freshly ground wheat taste better, has more nutritional value, and is less expensive than packaged flour. Plus, it saves a bunch of packaging waste. I know when I buy flour in a package, it doesn't last long and I need to replace it soon. So I figure buying the berries save a lot of excess trash and TIME.
Time, yes, that's valuable too. It might seem that grinding you own wheat takes time too, it does, but you can grind in batches and freeze, or do something else while the machine does all the hard work.
Grinding wheat doesn't require endless amount of time churning a hand crank (although it could, if you really wanted to do it that way!). There are some excellent grain mills on the market these days, and a high power blender, like a Vitamix or Blendtec, can grind wheat berries to flour too.
I own a Nutrimill and love it. The initial investment in this machine is a few hundred dollars, but after than you will be able to have fresh, organic wheat for very little cost. You can also grind other grains too. I often grind Kamut to make my favorite cookies.
From Azure Standard I can purchase 50 pounds of organic hard white wheat berries for $24.95 (less when on sale).
Currently on amazon you can buy 25 pounds of wheat flour for $24.45.
That's almost the same price for half the amount of flour!
Hard red wheat berries are also readily available, usually in the bulk bin at the health food store.
I prefer hard white wheat as it has a less wheaty taste and makes very good bread the kids love.
I also buy soft white wheat berries which make a nice pastry flour. I use this to make muffins and quick breads and any other baked good sin which I am replacing white flour.
Here is a picture of hard white wheat and soft white wheat side by side. (the hard white is on the left, soft white is on the right):
So, what do you think?
Is grinding wheat something you would try?
I'll get a video of my grain mill at work and post that soon (so you can see the magic in action). Also, I'll be sharing my favorite bread recipes early next week.
Check Out These Other Great Posts in the Go Green & Save Green Series:
- The Greenbacks Gal: Eat in Season: September
- Open Eye Health: Go “Green” with Food
- Simply Rebekah: 10 Tips for Making baby Food
- Live Renewed: How to Cook a Whole Chicken and Making Chicken Stock
I love this idea! Ground up some wheat berries last week at a store. Something to consider for sure!
Clare
I hadn’t thought about grinding them up at the store. That’s a great idea. I’ve also heard that some bakeries sell freshly ground flour. Although that may not be a very frugal option.
I’ve also heard of friends sharing a grain mill. That way they can both get the benefits at half the cost.
Thanks for stopping by!
Girl, I am realizing more every day that you are just plain greener than I am. God bless, ya! haha! 🙂
Of you make me laugh.
We are just green in different ways 🙂 I would never have thought to make a sprinkler out of a pop bottle!
Thanks so much for this post. My husband just purchased a Vitamix for me – yay for my awesome guy! – and he went with the dry blade addition b/c he knew that I wanted to “try” to start grinding grains. I have been super-excited since getting the blender, but I have been a bit intimidated by the thought of actually grinding wheat on my own. This post is just the push that I needed! And I am LOVING this series, as I am really trying to make steps to a greener a more frugal life. Having all of these great suggestions in one series with several bloggers has already been much help.
Yay Jennifer! I’m so excited you have found this series helpful.
How wonderful that you have a Vitamix to grind wheat with. I forgot to include in this post that usually 1 cup of wheat comes out to be approximately 1 to 1 1/4 cups of flour. So, it is fairly easy to measure how much you need.
Also, with a good blender, you can make soaked pancakes. I’ll have to hunt for the recipe, but there is one in which you put wheat berries, water and a little apple cider vinegar in the blender at night and then blend it all up and add the extra ingredients in the morning. Then you have good, healthy, easily-digestible pancake batter. It’s so easy.
Blessings to you 🙂
What kind of grinder do you use?
I use a Nutrimill: http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/index.aspx#Nutrimill
I like it. It does get rather loud though 🙂
We use the Kitchen-Aid grinder attachment to grind ours. I absolutely love it and it does taste so much better! We get ours from Azure Standard too – can’t beat it.
I would love to know what recipes you use it with. I’ve only used it with our breads and waffles so far. I’ve only used hard red wheat so far but I’ve broken open the big bag of hard white to bake with this week. I also blend soft and hard to make more of an all purpose flour for pizza dough.
I, too grind my own wheat. There is just no comparison to store bought flour!
Gina