Weekly sourdough recipes and tips from an experienced baker and homesteader, with a focus on 100% whole grains. Subscribe today to get a free eBook of sourdough discard recipes.
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How to prepare for food shortages the relaxed and sensible way, with sourdough
Published about 2 months ago • 4 min read
How to prepare for food shortages the relaxed and sensible way, with sourdough
The event that got me started with sourdough was when I moved out of the city and ran out of yeast. I’d wondered about making sourdough before this moment, but somehow it was just easier to rely on what I knew, and on little lumps of fresh yeast bought from the gourmet grocery shop in the city.
So there we were, with no sources of yeast nearby, and I had a family to feed. I made my first sourdough starter, and since then I’ve never looked back.
At some point I bought the only grain mill that I knew of, and imagined that I’d be lovingly hand-cranking out wonderful flour every day for our bread… It turned out to be the wrong mill for our needs, and I didn’t end up using it much.
My first grain mill. I do not recommend this type of mill!
Several years later, we lost some of our regular income. I bought a second hand electric mill and some grains in bulk with the last of our savings. Once we were milling all our own flour, we were saving $2 a kilo on flour. When you bake a lot of bread, this quickly adds up. The mill was soon paid for, and we had reduced our everyday expenses and become more resilient.
As I type this, it’s autumn where I live, and a natural time to be filling the larder and stocking up for the winter ahead. Getting prepared in this lifestyle is a cycle: In spring, we plant seeds, preparing in advance so that we’ll have food in the summer and autumn. All through the summer and autumn, we are tending to the growing crops, as well as eating and preserving the abundance. In winter, we’re planning the garden for the year ahead and eating our stored food. Preparing is something that is continually happening, not for some one-off event, but as a holistic part of everyday life, where we are looking at our needs in advance, and how we can best provide for these. This is what people in cold climates have done for thousands of years, and I enjoy being a part of this cycle.
You don’t need to have land to adopt many aspects of this lifestyle. By looking at family food needs over the course of a whole year, you can get a picture of what you need. You can grow, forage, or buy fruit and vegetables when they’re abundant, and preserve them for the lean times. You can create connections with local farmers and producers and buy directly from them.
Many people seem to have forgotten the lessons of 2020. The supermarket food system is fragile, and it doesn’t take much for it to topple over.
You don’t have to be a full-time homesteader on 50 acres to get away from this fragile system. By milling grain at home and baking sourdough you can become more resilient and prepared.
How to get more prepared with whole grains, fresh milling, and sourdough
1. Learn how to bake 100% whole grain sourdough breads that taste good. Try my recipes!
2. Choose a grain mill. For electric mills, I recommend stone mills from Germany and Austria such as Komo, Hawos, Schnitzer, and Waldner. All these brands are high quality, reliable, and low noise.
For hand-crank mills, ones that have a large flywheel, such as those made by Country Living or Grainmaker are going to be more efficient to use than the little Corona/Wondermill Junior-style ones that are around.
3. Source whole grains. Whole grains can be stored for years if needed - they keep for much longer than flour does. With this in mind, for the best price, it makes sense to buy grain in whole bags, because if you bake bread, you’re going to use all the grain before it gets a chance to go bad. These whole bags are usually around 20kg or 50 pounds in size. If you have a large family and bake lots of bread, you can sometimes get even more savings by buying by the tonne.
You can sometimes source grain directly from farmers, or look around for a bulk food distributor or co-op. Or your local grocery shop might be able to order in a whole bag for you (although the price from a shop is going to be a bit higher than going directly through farmers or distributors).
4. Enjoy your bread! Now you have a stash of grain, something to mill it in, and recipes that work. No matter what is going on in the outside world, you can create a nutritious staple food at home. Enjoy!
Four ways to make your baking more resilient, even without a grain mill
• If you’re baking sourdough, you’re on the right track - you’re producing your own baking yeast, that is one less thing to have to buy.
• Build relationships with farmers, millers, and bulk suppliers. When the 2020 supply disruptions happened, the bulk place I buy my wheat from (which also sells flour) limited their sales to new customers, but old customers were fine. Farmers I spoke to prioritised existing customers over new ones.
• Store your flour as cold as possible. Cool temperatures will keep it in top condition for longer.
• Ask around your local community and get creative - maybe you can borrow a grain mill from someone once a week, or swap fresh flour milled by someone for jam, sauerkraut, soap, or whatever you make at home.
Ready to become even more self reliant?
I’ve been working on some exciting new stuff for my homesteading/real food cooking blog, including a free bundle of ebooks about bulk food storage, cheesemaking, off grid living, mending, healthy cooking, and more. Join my homestead and cooking mailing list at https://hearthandsoil.kit.com/ and you’ll be among the first to get free access to the download link once it is live.
Weekly sourdough recipes and tips from an experienced baker and homesteader, with a focus on 100% whole grains. Subscribe today to get a free eBook of sourdough discard recipes.
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