Feed Store's

[vick]

Hey guys and gals.Me with another question,and i do appreciate all the wonderful help from all.
QUESTION:If i buy wheat and corn in bulk from a feed store,is it ok for human consumption?
I will of course grind it.Thanks in advance.:)

[610Alpha]

Look at one of the P.A.W. Productions vids, in it they cover this. Yes it is safe. The only difference between cattle wheat and human wheat is that human wheat goes through a cleaner 1 or 2 times more, so you get less dirt clods etc than the cattle feed. There are a bunch of vids by PAW so check them out.

[Klayton]

exactly as elittle posted... its safe...

[Bearman202]

A word of caution here. For most people, the preferred type of wheat for bread is the Hard Red Winter wheat. There is also a soft red, and a white. A friend grinds his own wheat and makes his own bread, and he tells me that the white is more of a pastry type of wheat, and doesn't make very good bread. I don't know all the details, but he insists it makes enough of a difference to make a difference, so you might want to ask what type of wheat it is before you buy it. Also, make sure you specify feed wheat, NOT SEED wheat. Apparently, for the seed variety, they spray it with chemicals to keep it from molding or something before it sprouts. Just thought you'd like to know....

[crossbow]

From Bobs red Mill page.

The terms “red” and “white” are used to identify the color of the kernel and not of the flour that is eventually milled from those kernels. Hard white wheat was actually originally developed from hard red wheat. The idea was to create a new type of wheat with the same overall nutritional value, but with some different characteristics for baking.

Red wheat has a slightly higher amount of protein which makes it better for more rustic, artisan and generally harder bread loaves. In contrast, hard white wheat’s more moderate level of protein makes for softer loaves such as your typical pan loaves and dinner rolls. In the bakery, we use hard white wheat to create a single-twisted sliced pan loaf which is very soft in texture.

The other major difference between the two types of wheat is in flavor. Red wheat has a certain genetic makeup that gives the bran its darker color, whereas white wheat has been cultivated to be free of these certain genes. By eliminating these genes, the bitter taste sometimes experienced with red wheat is reduced. Health conscious bakers often prefer white wheat because this genetically reduced bitterness requires less additional sweeteners in the final product

We and most people that we know store white wheat.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6985/wheat-red-vs-white-spring-vs-winter

[monkeybird]

Crossbow is right about the different types of wheat. Hard red wheat is grown in cooler climates. Unfortunately for me, shipping the hard red wheat to the south is so very expensive, I decided to buy the feed wheat at my local farmers co-op that sells the type grown locally.

The wheat I bought was really very clean. I repackaged it in mylar and O2, and when pouring it out of the bag, I was pleased to see how clean it actually was. I have also stocked up on corn. I had the same experience. It was clean also.

FYI - last year it was $6.99 for 50#, now it's over $9.50 per 50# bag. Corn is also up significantly. The clerk told me the price changed daily. So, now would be a good time to stock up.
.

[Lowdown3]

Here's an old blog post written on the subject-

Thursday, June 18, 2009
Alternate source for grains
Copyright 2009 Robert Henry

Editor's note- we are not "advising" people to store feed grains. We have made that crystal clear in numerous videos. However we keep getting the question "when I go to the feed store, what do I ask for?" So we decided to answer it here.

As I've covered before numerous times, the only difference between "feed" wheat and standard wheat is the amount of CLEANING done to it. A farmer does NOT plant a field and say "that there is gonna be PEOPLE wheat" and another field where he says "that there is gonna be ANIMAL wheat." There is NO two varieties.

The difference comes when it hits the processor. Standard "feed" grains are DOUBLE CLEANED. What this means is that they will have slightly more chaff and dust than TRIPLE CLEANED wheat- which is the standard for "people" wheat.

Now for folks that cannot find regular wheat in their local areas, this offers a possible alternative to shipping cross country.

1. Don't go into a feed store asking "can I EAT this stuff?" Liability is the key concern of just about every business now a days. Also, "Cleetus and Festus" at the feed store often times have no real idea about this. Your shopping for your "very picky" horse. You've had him get "sick" before because some grains were treated, you read this article saying that whole grains were better for your prized horse, etc. Then Cleetus and Festus will just think your the typical idiot yuppie.

The best choices in grains that you are likely to find in a feed store-

*Wheat- ask for whole wheat aka "kernals" or "berries" you do NOT want "wheat middlings" "wheat bran" or any form of ground or processed wheat. Whole wheat. Suggest that if you don't know what this should look like that you spend some time online viewing pics of it so you know what it should look like. Do NOT expect Cleetus and Festus at the feed store to know their product, sorry but that's been my experience with it.

I've bought a lot of wheat at feed stores, some for me, most to grow, all has been "feed" wheat except one bag that was more costly and was officially called "seed" wheat. The seed wheat was NOT treated, although it may be in your area, if in doubt ASK. "Treated" means something sprayed on the seed to keep it from rotting and/or getting bugs, etc. it means different things to different people but the bottom line is- you don't want anything for food that has had pesticides directly on it.

*Oats- oats have a hull that would have to be processed off to get what your likely familiar with- oatmeal. You may be able to process oats and have that equipment, you may not. Your NOT going to get quick rolled oats from the feed store. Quick rolled oats is what you get with the little quaker guy on it.....

In other words, probably skip the oats.

*Corn- whole kernal corn, NOT ground corn. Here again we want the whole kernal, not a processed form of it. A lot of "seed" corn is treated and you WILL SEE the purplish tint on the entire seed. If in doubt, take a handful and run it under water or get it wet, if your hand turns purplish color, it's likely treated.

The general idea is to go and find what you need, purchase 1 bag and take it home to check it out. Now, if you are not "used" to feed products, you might assume that the slight "smell" you get when you open the bag is mold or pesticides. It's hard to describe smells but I would say the "normal" smell of clean feed wheat is just kind of an "old" smell (even if it was just packed), to me all bagged grains kinda have that smell. If it's pesticides it will smell more like chemicals, hold a handful up to your noise and look over it carefully, it's going to be pretty obvious.

Unless their is some really grave cir***stances, "I" would not buy grains from a feed store right now i.e, SUMMERTIME. Here in the south the best time to buy is in the fall and winter when the bug situation is less or non-existent. This may not be a problem in your area, but it is in a high heat, high humidity area.

Hope this helps.

As always you can email any questions to
jrhenterprises@dishmail.net

RH

Websites of interest to you-

https://www.jrhenterprises.com

https://www.survivalreport.net

https://www.ammoconnection.com

[Buktoof]

Thank you Lowdown3 for the very informative post. I have yet to start my long term preps just for that very reason of not knowing what I should get or go about getting it. This gives me a good idea of what to look for when purchasing. Question about the oats though. . . can you store the quaker oats kind (is it dry enough, last long enough). Both my son and I love oat meal and since I already storing stuff like cinnamon, maple syrup, etc I was hoping to have this as part of our preps.

Once again I would like to thank everyone that shares their information so freely with those of us who are new to this.

[Lowdown3]

Now a problem for the Quaker oats. The guy in the black hat stores pretty well. ;) Repackage in mylar for LTS.

The wife is rotating some oats of ours from 98 right now. I'll go through a phase where I will eat them for a couple weeks, then go back to toast. So she has a lot of oats to rotate on her own.

[rockriver]

the question...
is this source of grain all right to eat? always brings this story to mind.
a relative died a few years back.. i would try to get her to tell what she knew of
my great greats war of northern aggression activities.. she wouldn't.. the stories she
had heard as a child were not pleasant and "that isn't fittin' to tell. it was bad times"
--
a story that might slip out was that the uncles would gather at family gatherings and
start talking among themselves. then they'd get teary eyed.
after the war on the way home things were very tough and they had a long way to walk to get back home...
they were starving.
they would look for grain that had been processed by cattle/horses. (processed means the horse ate it, but didn't digest it, therefore it was on the roadway/trail)
so...
depends on how hungry you are.
rr

[Red Diamond Ranch]

Yes on the feed corn, but do not buy the color tinted corn. That is seed corn and not for consumption by man or beast!! It is poisinous, dirt nap, toes up, lights out!

[610Alpha]

Thought I would give this thread a bump since I just found a Grain Elevator that is on my drive home that has 50 lb. bags of wheat for $6.75 a bag....I will stop buy here in a couple days and get a bag as soon as my mylar bags get here....decided to go with the 5 gallon bags until I got my food stores up to snuff then I will use the 1 gallon bags to make "charity buckets".....looking to get a grain mill here in the next week or so.

If the wheat is "Whole Wheat" then I will do a vid on putting it into storage same goes for the grinder when I get it.

[Lowdown3]

Awesome. A little late in the warmer weather to put up wheat right now, but bugs may not be the issue up there that they are here. I'd buy 1 bag first to be sure, if it's buggy you can always give it to the chickens or scatter it in the backyard- you'll have more wheat then ;)

What did you choose for a grinder?

[610Alpha]

That is exactly what i was going to do, figured $6.75 wouldn't break the bank to find out if the wheat is buggy.

I chose a Corona Tall Cap Cast Iron Grain Mill. They weren't too bad on price. I figured get one learn how to use and then advance up or buy more of the same, I know that the Country Living Mill might be the go to mill but at that price I would have to save up for a long time just to get one. I would have to go thru A LOT of these mills before even coming close to the cost of one of the Country Living ones. I'll post a review as soon as I get it.

[crossbow]

Ditto to what elittle stated, grain for human consumption is just cleaned a couple more times