Interactive lesson

Grain and flour plan, step by step

Interactive lesson: how much grain your household needs from harvest to harvest — measuring use, from bread to field, buying, storing, reserve and the monthly check.

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The whole lesson as text

1. How much grain you need

The plan starts with one sum: how much grain the household eats from one harvest to the next.

Norm per person — An adult eats roughly 100 kg of bread grain (wheat, spelt, rye) and 25 kg of maize a year.
Where the grain goes — Bread and pogača 65–75 kg of wheat or spelt, pitas and pastry sheets 10–15 kg, pasta and semolina 5–8 kg. Pura, proja and cornbread 25 kg of maize.
Adult equivalent — Adults and children from 15 count as 1, a child of 7–14 as 0.7, a child up to 6 as 0.4. Add them up for the whole household.
The norm is a start — Plan the first year by the norm, but measure what you really use. The second year is planned by your own figures.

Why: When the sum is right, a handful of old grain is left in the granary at harvest. When it isn't, flour is bought dear in spring or the family eats less bread. The norms are an average for a household that bakes its own bread and pies and eats pura (Balkan polenta).

A household that eats more potatoes and rice uses less; one with heavy physical work and lots of pies uses more.
Anyone doing heavy physical work eats a fifth more.

2. Measure your own use

The most accurate plan comes from your own kitchen.

Weigh on day one — On day one, weigh all the flour, semolina and grain in the house and write it down.
Write everything down — Write down every loaf, bag of flour and packet of pasta you buy, and every bake: how much flour went in.
Bought into flour — Convert bought bread into flour: 1 kg of bread ≈ 0.69 kg of flour (an 800 g UK loaf ≈ 0.55 kg). Dry pasta ≈ the same weight of semolina or flour.
Last day and × 12 — On the last day weigh the stores again. The difference plus purchases is the month's use; multiply it by 12.

Why: Measure for a month, an ordinary month without holidays or big jobs. Holidays, feast days and haymaking use more, so add them separately, by number of tins and loaves.

Keep wheat flour, cornmeal and rye or spelt in separate columns.
A scale up to 50 kg makes weighing sacks and buckets much easier.