Wheat buckets or flour buckets

Interesting info, Tristan.  Thanks!  I think I will pass that along to my dh and put a wheat grinder on my wish list. 

Here is another post, Linda.  You may have already read this, but it includes places where you can purchase them.

http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/grinding-flour/page/2

We have buckets of whole grain and grind it ourselves. I haven’t done a study about whether it saves money. I mean it saves us money because of our special grain needs–allergies. I think it would save anyone money though.

A few years ago, places like Bob’s Red Mill were not charging actual shipping fees and we got several hundred pounds of grain and they sent it in giant paper bags. We put it into buckets we bought from Emergency Essentials (beprepared.com).

So we were running low and had to look somewhere else because if I ordered from Bob’s (I love their grain by the way), we would have to pay more for shipping than we would for the food, literally.

Emergency Essentials only charges $12.00 for shipping whatever you buy!! So we ordered over 600 pounds of oat groats in 15 buckets they call superpails. They have a mylar bag lining and an oxygen absorbing packet. They are meant for long term storage. We paid $12.00 for shipping and Fed Ex Freight brought it on an 18 wheeler to our house. They had the 15 buckets on a pallet and they left it on the street behind my car and we brought them in ourselves. The driver said that it cost $90 just for him to lower the lift gate and use the little motorized thing to roll it off, and $60 just to drive it there on the truck, and we really paid only $12. 

So if you have to have anything shipped, I would go with Emergency Essentials. The grain itself didn’t even cost more and it was already packed for me.

As far as flour, we get our special flour a couple hundred pounds at a time from Purity Foods and they don’t charge as much shipping as other places either. But I don’t think they sell wheat flour.

I bought a grain mill a when we started this a few years ago, and I think I paid about $250 for it. I use it absolutely all the time and it is fabulous. It’s electric. I also have a hand grinder which is a TON of work. If I had to use that only, I don’t know how long we would spend grinding. I think it’s a smooth one though, and others are even more work. But it doesn’t take long to crack grain for cereal which we love. Both the grinders are Wonder Mills.

Hope that’s helpful.

I buy flour in 25# bag and use a Gamma- Seal lid. The Gamma Seal lid keeps the flour ect… from going bad, stale, ect…   It attaches to a large 5 gallon bucket. You can put it on a 7- gallon bucket also.  I bought my bucket at Menard’s.. I bought the Gamma-Seal through Country Life. You can probably get them on-line fairly cheap. I paid about 5.99 for mine.  What I did was take a rubber malot and pound it onto the bucket and then screw the lid on. However, after one wouldn’t go on I turned the bucket upside down with the lid on the floor and stood on it. It went on so much easier and I didn’t have to frustrate myself with all the pounding. 🙂  I have one for cane juice crystals, 2 for oats, one for brown rice and one for white rice. You may want to get a 7 gallon bucket for oats. So for less than $10 I have a really good storage bucket that seals in freshness. you just have to unscrew the lid. I buy my stuff in bulk and save myself time. If you do grind your own flour this is a good route because it seems to stay fresh. Good luck and I hope this helps.