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Buying from feed store

18K views 67 replies 42 participants last post by  IceFire 
#1 ·
Good Morning to All,
This is my first post and first of all let me say how blessed we are to have such an informative site! I have been looking for a site such as this for a long time and am so glad I found it this morning.
Here's my first (of many questions). Can I purchase wheat, beans, etc at the local feed store and it will still be healthy to consume? Also, what other seeds (food) will be okay to buy there as well?
Thank you and have an awesome day,
Joe
 
#41 ·
Speaking as another bread-baker and former baker I'll say this...gluten is highly important to give bread any kind of leavening. As everyone knows, yeast is what causes bread to rise, through it's multiplication which gives off amounts of carbon dioxide gas. Without gluten, the carbon dioxide is able to rise through the bread and far less is trapped, resulting in flat breads.

Not always a bad thing. Tortillas, pitas and lavash are all made with unleavened or lightly leavened breads, but they're not what most people would consider a 'loaf' of bread.

Take a look at the different types of wheat we have open to us. The most common designations are hard winter red, hard spring red, soft winter red, hard winter white, soft spring white and durum. For the most part, we can divide the wheat used in breads into simply 'hard' and 'soft,' though.

Hard wheat flours have a protein content between 10-14%, with the highest protein going to hard spring red wheat. These wheats are considered bread wheats, and when you buy 'bread flour' from the store it was likely milled from these, with all-purpose flour made up of some of the lower-protein strains.

Soft wheat has a lower protein content, often below 9%, and it's flour is used to bake cakes and pastries. Cakes are leavened with chemical agents such as baking powder or baking soda, which produces more bang in a quicker time than yeast, which is a relatively slow-acting leavening process. You'll notice that cakes are still rather delicate. Anyone who has cooked them will tell you that the most frustrating thing is to have a cake 'fall' on you, which is when the contained carbon dioxide finds a way to escape and takes it, along with all the leavening of the cake.

Durum wheat actually has a higher protein content than either, but it's yellowish color makes it generally unappreciated for breads, other than certain Mediterranean breads. It's mostly used for pastas, and that's where the pasta you buy gets it's unique yellowish color.

As for wonder (wunder) bread and most major breads sold today. Strictly speaking, they're combination breads. They're often prepared with low-gluten flours, as low as 6-8%, and while they do have some yeast in them, they're also leavened with bicarbonate of sodium, or baking soda. The combination of the two, along with the low protein content and the over-processing of the grain causes the texture of the bread. You can tell it was done with chemical leavening because of the tiny air pockets inside of the bread, the same that you might find in a cake. Compare that to 'botique' breads that you'd find elsewhere, and you'll clearly see that 'real' bread generally has rather large holes in the crumb.

The original reason for the name 'wonder' bread, was because they could take a loaf of bread from raw flour to finished bread in under an hour and a half, which was a 'wonderful' thing. The very open crumb structure of the bread even lent itself to quick cooking, which meant that a softer crust was formed. Anyone who's cooked bread knows it takes about fifteen minutes of hand kneading (Or five in a mixer) plus an hour for the first rise. After that, it's another half-hour or so for the second rise once you punch it down, and about another 45 minutes to an hour for the bread to cook once it's risen a second time.

And yes, I know there are no-knead breads and breads that can be finished quicker. I've even experimented with them. In this case, I'm referring to the French-style baking that I was taught.

I was going to write in the way to cook 'real' bread here, not some monster hybrid bread like wonder bread, it'll blow peoples minds. Anyone interested can PM me. However...I think most of the people here know already. Which is a minority, let me assure you. Real bread has a crust to it because of the long baking period (relative to wonder bread, which is often done in as little as 20 minutes once it goes in the oven), the action of the yeast and the skin that forms on the bread because of the gluten. Real bread often has a more open crumb, unlike wonder bread, though there are some varieties that will have a fairly close crumb.

But most importantly, real bread has taste. A dip of olive oil or nothing at all is required to make bread taste good.

To get back to the original posters question...I've got about 80# of wheat put back in several buckets that I originally bought from the feed store for grinding to make bread. I made sure to get triple washed wheat and the 20 or so pounds I've already eaten have given me no ill effect. The key thing to look for is triple-washed.

Just my .02. Use or abuse as you see fit. :)
 
#45 ·
Thank you again Tryste, excellent information. This last weekend I picked up the wheat I had ordered from our local Wheat Montana. 100 lbs of Hard Red Spring wheat, 100 lbs of Hard White Spring wheat, 50 lbs of Soft White Spring wheat, and 50 lbs of Wheat Bran. I am just waiting for the Gamma Seal lids I ordered to come in this friday and I should be good to go.
I may have to pick up a couple hundred lbs more of the hard wheat now that I have seen your post. The wheat Montana store sells 50 lb bags for $22.50, That doesn't seem like a bad price. Ant thoughts on this ?
 
#47 ·
Agreed. I buy my wheat for less than half that at our local feed store. But for those who just can't get get their heads wrapped around buying at a feed store that's about the best price I've seen. Before I realized I could get my wheat locally I considered buying from Wheat Montana but I'm too far away from them and the shipping will kill you. Puts it out of reach for me.

gk
 
#51 ·
Several Considerations

Feed store feed designed for animals MAY not be fit for human consumption in a normal situation. However, for a SHTF fan, any port in a storm. Animal feed may have all sorts of chemical additivies to fill fungi, mold, bugs, viruses, bacteria and even insects.

Livestock today are kept alive JUST LONG ENOUGH to be eaten by us. This implys that THEIR food may just be the wrong thing for people who expect to live quite a long time indeed. However, there MUST be some SEED feed designed to be safely eaten by livestock and people.

However...FEED grain-stock usually is not good seed stock. You can't plant it as it will not grow. This is because of the forementioned stuff in the feed or it has been ground up soss the livestock can eat it. Very hybrid stuff doesn't grow well. What you need is ORGANIC SEED STOCK. HB of CJ (old coot)
 
#53 ·
I bought my wheat from the feed store closest to the horse track. Recleaned for race horses was 12.50 per 50lbs last year. I haven't bought any ths year as I am using the $$ to buy storage buckets etc. for mesquite pods just now, harvest in june dry until oct/ nov hammermill and mylar/ O2 obsorber/displace [dry ice]
 
#56 ·
The wheat (wheatberries) from my feed store look decent but do have other objects in them. I know one of the farmers who sells them and other feed stores their wheat and he said do to the way animal feed is stored, he wouldnt eat it but said it would likely be fine... I buy extra and feed it off to my poultry and rabbits. should shtf, we will eat it. Until then, I'm not risking it.
 
#57 ·
I bought some wheat from a feed store near me.
It said on the label on the bag that it has 12.8% protein, 1.5% fat, and 3% fiber.
Is this normal? I ground some into flour and made pizza dough out of it, it turned out ok but not great. I'm going to try making bread with it.
 
#59 ·
So, did you buy 'feed' store wheat, corn or barley?
I did, but not just from this thread but several others similar ones too.

The only difference I could find was double cleaned for animal feed verses triple cleaned for 'people' food.
That and the price difference.
 
#68 ·
I regularly buy whole oats, wheat, and milo from the local feed store. They also have whole corn as well as barley. The main thing I've found is that sometimes there might a piece or two of rolled corn in the bag. For mixing the grains for feed, it's no big deal. For grinding into flour, just pick out the pieces of corn.
 
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