Wheat!

February 1, 2012 7:12 AM

What can I do with 46 pounds each of hard spring white wheat and hard winter red wheat?
posted by Raybun to Food & Drink (9 answers total)

Read "52 Loaves", then grab your best-est friends together and have a thrashing/milling party. Preheat oven and bake. This could be a lot of fun, plus you'll be the only kid on the block to have flour that's not loaded with supplemental vitamins etc... You can probably find somebody locally who has a home or small-scale grain mill.

Or, do as my grandmother did, and make wheat-stuffed corduroy frogs with googly eyes. It must've been a thing back then.
posted by webhund at 7:19 AM on February 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

If you know any home brewers, you might know someone who has a grain mill. It'd be worth asking around.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:34 AM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

You can cook it and eat it without milling it - wheat berries are DELICIOUS, and they've got much more protein and fiber than rice. You can have them for breakfast like steel-cut oatmeal, or as a side dish. Also makes a great grain salad base.
posted by mskyle at 7:41 AM on February 1, 2012

Search your region for artisanal bakers. They just might be interested in experimenting. We had a cool program a few years ago where growers brought a couple kinds of wheat that was on the Slow Food endangered-foods list called the Ark of Taste to our city, some local bakers baked it up, and we had a public program with a comparitive tasting of the qualities of the different wheats.
posted by Miko at 7:52 AM on February 1, 2012

Here's some more dialog on using it to make beer. Looks like it can turn out quite tasty if done right.
posted by samsara at 8:10 AM on February 1, 2012

Your could grow wheatgrass. There are a lot of instructions online. I've done it in perlite and on moist paper towels. I don't personally like the taste, but it looks nice and your cats will like it.
posted by hydrophonic at 9:14 AM on February 1, 2012

You could use the winter wheat as a cover crop in your garden.
posted by HotToddy at 10:25 AM on February 1, 2012

Soak a half cup of it overnight, drain in the morning, snack on it throughout the day. Oh yum.

By the way, if your lovely bushels of wheat stay dry and cool (10 degrees celcius or less), they will keep for 3+ years, so enjoy!
posted by bluebelle at 8:11 PM on February 1, 2012

Yes, get it milled and bake bread. I live by myself and don't get to bake quite as often as I'd like (because someone keeps making me go and work for a living etc), but I doubt that that quantity would last me a year. I'm sure you can explore recipes that suit the two different kinds--I used to bake with hard winter red wheat when I lived in the US and the bread was tasty but dense. The white stuff (mixed or by itself) might make something with a more open, 'holey' crumb. You'd have fun finding out.

Also beer. But then you'll need to grow a lot more next year.
posted by lapsangsouchong at 1:45 PM on February 4, 2012