Wheat is the basis of our food. We shall need to store in our cellar 100 kilos per adult person for one year. We can store it in tin cheese containers or in plastic barrels suitable for food and place in them pieces of lime; we may also put laurel and fig leaves or garlic, which helps preserve wheat.
Plastic or tin containers should first be washed with vinegar and then filled and stored in a cool place, on a floor of wood planks or palettes so that they do not draw humidity from earth or concrete floor.
Wheat berries we can be ground to flour and flakes, but we can also boil and cook or sprout them for consumption.
Flour is what we get by grinding the wheat berries.
We can use hand- or electrical grinders (mills) for home use. In the market one can also find hand mills for making flakes.
With a home mill we can have the quantity of flour that we need every time; cereal berries are easier to preserve than flour. These grinders will render whole wheat flour, with which our bread will not rise considerably and will not be fluffy. For making bread or pizza dough, we suggest that you mix several various flours.
Long term preservation of flour
Our flour may be stored for long periods of time in containers of metal, of plastic suitable for food or even in glass jars. The containers should be washed with vinegar, while the glass jars can be sterilized.
Get some clean tin cheese containers. On the bottom place a good layer of coarse salt, topped by an optional layer of sane and dry laurel leaves. After gathering these leaves from the tree, we should use them within 20 days, in order to retain their smell and properties. For as long as we do not use them, we keep them in a paper box covered with a piece of chiffon or in a cloth bag.
Salt and laurel must be dry; if we think they may contain humidity, we sundry or we dry them in the oven. Salt can also be placed in the oven for half hour at 80o C. As a rule, salt can be used more than once, after drying it in the sun or the oven.
Next, we fill the container with flour, pressing it down with a wooden spoon, to avoid leaving gaps. If we have 17 kilo-containers, two of them shall take a full 50-kilo sack of flour. In the middle we place another layer of salt and laurel leaves; for small, more practical containers, there is no need of a middle layer.
If we suspect insect eggs in our flour, we shall put it in large pans in the oven at 90o C, for one and a half hour. As we are filling our container, we push the flour at the corners with our spoon, to make sure it is firmly compressed.
When we reach near the brim of the container, we shall again place one good layer of salt and laurel leaves. Then we top it with plastic film and, finally, with the lid. Instead of the plastic film, we may secure the lid with masking tape, wax or silicon. If we choose wax, we only do this after we have placed the container in its final post, because wax may break during transportation.
We store our containers in a shaded space with no humidity. This procedure must be done in dry warm or cool weather, not in a cold or heat wave. The containers should never stand directly on the floor. We place them on palettes or planks of wood, so that no humidity can be drawn from the ground. During very cold and humid weather, we cover them with a clean blanket and we spread some wood chips underneath. In a heat spell, we just throw a sheet over.
How to use
When the moment comes to use our stored with coarse salt flour from the containers, after opening the lid we grab a fine sieve and pass the flour through. A little of the salt might pass as well, but it is no big deal.
We can preserve our flour for a long term by vacuuming it; we put it in a paper bag, which we close and then vacuum the whole. We do not recommend this method though, because what we wish is to train for methods that do not require the use of electricity.