I was thinking I should try growing grains as are getting pretty self sufficient in veg & fruit now, but i have never tried growing any before. Has anyone got any experience of growing and processing grains, on a fairly small scale, for the kitchen?
Any tips or recommendations would be most appreciated. I particularly like oats (to make oatcakes) any tips?
Growing Grains
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cevenol jardin
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Hello Rachel
I thought about this a few years ago but couldn't even find any small scale (cheapish) machines for milling grain to flour or rolling grain so I never got any further.
I couldn't even find a supplier of quality grain that could be processed at home had I got a machine.
Sorry not to be much help on this one.
John
I thought about this a few years ago but couldn't even find any small scale (cheapish) machines for milling grain to flour or rolling grain so I never got any further.
I couldn't even find a supplier of quality grain that could be processed at home had I got a machine.
Sorry not to be much help on this one.
John
The Gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men’s lives, the hours spent fishing Assyrian tablet
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
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Colin_M
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John wrote:I couldn't even find any small scale (cheapish) machines for milling grain to flour or rolling grain
In case you or CJ is interested, the following page might be of use:
My daughter bought one of the hand-powered versions from here. This makes good flour, but isn't particularly quick or suited to high volume production.
Coln
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oldherbaceous
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Dear Geoff, i'm sure i don't know what you mean. 
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.
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There's no fool like an old fool.
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goldilox
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If you don't want to go to the expense of a flour mill straight away, why not try an electric coffee grinder. It's faster than it sounds and makes good flour.
I was hoping Santa would bring me a flour mill at Christmas, but obviously I hadn't been good enough
I was hoping Santa would bring me a flour mill at Christmas, but obviously I hadn't been good enough
Hi CJ,
A friend of mine in Trebas bought a milling machine in France back in the early 1990's and to her it was wonderful but to me it was a pig to use and was always jamming-up. Sadly she is no longer with us so it's not possible to find out any details. This is really to inform you that they are sold in France and it was manufactured in France.
She used to buy grain from the local baker and it was pesticide free according to him.
As regards Oats they are rolled and not milled like Wheat and the only thing I have ever seen in that line is a machine to produce feed for Horses!
During WW2 I suspect that my porridge was from that source as things were hard to get then!
With Wheat you would have to grow an awful lot to even consider making a few loaves.
I am not trying to put you off growing it but I do feel that you have really got to think hard and long before attempting such a venture.
JB.
A friend of mine in Trebas bought a milling machine in France back in the early 1990's and to her it was wonderful but to me it was a pig to use and was always jamming-up. Sadly she is no longer with us so it's not possible to find out any details. This is really to inform you that they are sold in France and it was manufactured in France.
She used to buy grain from the local baker and it was pesticide free according to him.
As regards Oats they are rolled and not milled like Wheat and the only thing I have ever seen in that line is a machine to produce feed for Horses!
During WW2 I suspect that my porridge was from that source as things were hard to get then!
With Wheat you would have to grow an awful lot to even consider making a few loaves.
I am not trying to put you off growing it but I do feel that you have really got to think hard and long before attempting such a venture.
JB.
i went down this route some 20 years ago. at the time we were rolling barley for cattle feed using a bentall roller mill, basically a couple of steel rollers roughly 4 inches wide some 6 in diameter driven by a 3hp electric motor, probably do a couple of hundredweight an hour. we did once get hold of some locally grown oats and put some of them through just to see if they were edible, they were.
we also got hold of hand cranked mill for grinding wheat, it very soon got cobbled up to a motor.we grew a small crop of organic wheat and over a couple of years ground our flour.
time moved on things changed and we stopped doing it.i dont think its a realistic proposition , growing wheat or oats isnt difficult, they are basically grasses, harvesting and thrashing the grain is another thing entirely, when we did it i had a combine harvester . doing it by hand is hard work . there are new mills out there but the cheap coffee grinder types are really toys and painfully slow,
if you can get hold of a decent mill its probably better to buy the grain to put through it than trying to grow it yourself.
but there is so much organic flour available now in the shops that i really dont think its worth the investment and the time to try to do it yourself.
we also got hold of hand cranked mill for grinding wheat, it very soon got cobbled up to a motor.we grew a small crop of organic wheat and over a couple of years ground our flour.
time moved on things changed and we stopped doing it.i dont think its a realistic proposition , growing wheat or oats isnt difficult, they are basically grasses, harvesting and thrashing the grain is another thing entirely, when we did it i had a combine harvester . doing it by hand is hard work . there are new mills out there but the cheap coffee grinder types are really toys and painfully slow,
if you can get hold of a decent mill its probably better to buy the grain to put through it than trying to grow it yourself.
but there is so much organic flour available now in the shops that i really dont think its worth the investment and the time to try to do it yourself.
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cevenol jardin
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Feels like a consensus here that its too much work and too difficult to process. It just seems a shame when i think the people who lived on the land i am on must have done it a couple of hundred years ago with no machinary. I'm not advocating a stone age existence don't get me wrong its just that grains are such a staple in our diet it would make sense to produce them ourselves. It also explains why there are almost no kitchen gardening books that mention growing grains. The only info I have found is in John Seymour's book Self Sufficiency.
Perhaps i should look for grains that might be easier to process on a small scale, like Amaranths or Quinoa, but can you make oatcakes with them????. I would really like to grow oats so thanks JB - what's good enough for a horse will be good enough for me and gives me some hope.
Perhaps i should look for grains that might be easier to process on a small scale, like Amaranths or Quinoa, but can you make oatcakes with them????. I would really like to grow oats so thanks JB - what's good enough for a horse will be good enough for me and gives me some hope.
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