Posted on 10/17/2023 8:44:11 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
Last month I attended a meeting of the Virginia Grain Producer’s Association to learn more about how the vast majority of grain is produced. I had the pleasure of being accompanied by three other CGA members, and, inevitably, the topic of scale came up. The VGPA farmers think in thousands of acres; CGA producers may be working with 100 or less. One of the challenges of building up a regional food system of any sort is balancing supply with demand. So the calculators came out and numbers were crunched, and it made me realize I don’t have a good handle on how many buyers are needed to support the farmers we already have in our network, let alone new farmers. Plus, purely selfishly, I’ve always wanted to figure out how many acres of grain is required to support my little bakery.
There are a few factors that play into this calculation. First, how many bushels per acre will a farmer harvest? This depends on the type of grain, the farmer’s skill, growing practices, and Mother Nature. If we assume we are talking about wheat that is grown sustainably in an average year in the Mid-Atlantic, 40 bushels per acre seems to be a reasonable place to start. (The U.S. average in 2021 was around 52 bushels per acre). Second, there are harvest and cleaning losses. I have no idea how much is lost (which means you can look for a future post on this topic!) but I’ll be conservative and say 10% is lost. Third, the standard weight of a bushel of wheat is 60 pounds, or 27 kg.
At the mill, the grade of flour determines how many kg of flour you get from each kg of grain. If you have an excellent mill, you can get close to 100% conversion of grain to flour, called “extraction” in the trade. If you sift out some of the larger particles for a finer grade flour, you have losses. 80% extraction is common in a lot of bakeries, including mine. At this point, we can figure out how many pounds of flour a farmer can expect per acre.
40 bu/acre x 60 lb/bu x 0.9 harvest yield x 0.8 extraction = about 1,700 pounds flour
This goes up to about 2,100 pounds if the flour is not sifted (that is, there are no milling losses).
Additional factors at the bakery are the amount of flour in a loaf of bread, and the number of loaves baked in a year. At my bakery, most loaves use about 400 g of flour, or 0.9 pounds. We are tiny, and only operate 10 months (or 43 weeks) out of the year. But let’s say we have a great year and make 300 loaves per week during that time. My bakery then uses:
300 loaves/ wk x 43 weeks x 0.9 lb/loaf = 11,600 lb flour.
That means about 6.7 acres of wheat (11,600 lb flour / 1,700 lb flour/acre) will support my bakery for a year.
I am not sure what I was expecting, but seeing this tiny amount of land supporting a bakery that employs three full-time people triggers all kinds of thoughts and feelings. But one obvious implication is that the CGA network can absorb a lot more buyers. One hundred acres of wheat can produce 3700 loaves of bread a week. Because our farmers use sustainable practices, they only grow wheat once every three years, so with good soil health practices, you would need three 100 acre farms to produce that much. But still. That’s a lot of bread.
How many acres of grain will support your baking or processing activities?
Article: Why did women stop dominating the beer industry?
(My thought about he Smithsonian article is that it was Household Husbandry and Inn Keeping and not an "Industry" until about 2 centuries ago. Still, some good information.)
Brewers yeast is very good source of B vitamins and can be used to give a Cheesy Uami taste.
You probably have your own Brewing source somewhere in Wisconsin. (I dunnoh....Are their brewing supplies in Wisconsin? :) But here is another!
Northern Brewer Home Brewing supplies
Survival foods! Beside Potatos, turnips, carrots, and Rutabagas are good choices and all store well for a long time. In season, turnips are just about the fastest growing vegetable. You can eat them, your animals can eat them. (So can wild animals...Other readers....fencing is probably the first thing a starting gardener should buy! Ellendra...I know you already know this!)
(I am making cider right now....I may use it to make vinegar later!)
No problem. Neither fat or a lady. 😉
Unfortunately, I’m both. Keeping my calorie intake below 1000 just slows down the rate of gain. At one point I managed to get my intake below 450/day for 2 weeks, but that isn’t something I can do long-term.
I actually do all my brewing with ordinary bread yeast. I know there are lots of specialized strains, there’s even a shop nearby that sells them. But when I decided to try my hand at winemaking I chose to look for the simplest method possible. Results have been good. I just don’t drink that much, so I stopped making it. It’s a good skill to have.
I am making some hard cider with a Red Star wine yeast. I will use some for Vinegar. I saw a 1 qt bottle of Bragg ACV selling for $10 and decided, like you, to at least know how to produce our own.
**If you try again, bakers yeast is geared for a very fast ferment of carbs. An inexpensive wine yeast developed specifically to ferment grapes would take longer, but probably better results. Red Star, for example, makes both bread and wine yeasts.
There are lots of good electronic scales that will give you body fat % and water weight to track proper hydration. You can derive your lean body mass from the scale and set personal targets suitable for your own configuration. Protein sufficient is the aim. Shorting protein can have adverse effects on your heart.
I'm currently 17% body fat. At 145 lbs, it was 13.7%. Women need a higher body fat percentage to be healthy.
My wines were made from other things. The first wine I made was from butternut squash, because I assumed my first try would be a disaster and had so much squash that it would be no big loss. It turned out so well, it won a contest!
My other attempts were made from apples, melons, and one was made from coffee grounds because I wanted to see if would taste like Kahlua. (Still don’t know, somebody threw it out.)
Apples are a good choice for cider. I have cider fermenting downstairs.
I have rhubarb out in the garden and may give Rhubarb wine a try. There are a number of recipes for Rhubarb wine.
I have tried intermittent fasting. The only thing I got out of it were migraines and shakiness.
I’m pretty sure the problem lies in the enzymes needed to convert fat into energy. There’s a list of them needed, and if any are missing, the fat stays where it is. I know there are other enzymes my body refuses to produce, so it wouldn’t be any surprise if one of the fat-burning enzymes is also on the list. Unfortunately that’s not something that’s easy to test for.
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