As I was writing yesterday’s post, I realized it might be a good idea to start showing some recipes based on a year’s calculations… thereby making it a whole lot easier to figure out how much of each ingredient you need to have on hand for a year supply. So let’s start with bread, since it is a basic food storage staple.

{Note: I will base this off of my favorite bread recipe, found HERE.}

One Loaf For Every Day

To have one loaf of bread every day (which means you would actually make it every other day– or 183 times in a year– seeing as the recipe makes two loaves of bread) you would need the following quantities of ingredients:

• 503¼ cups of water (32 gallons)
• 61 cups of olive oil (4 gallons)
• 61 cups of honey (4 gallons)
• 366 Tablespoons brown sugar (1,098 teaspoons, or 5 (2 lb) bags)
• 183 Tablespoons sea salt (549 teaspoons, or 4.5 (26 oz) containers of salt)
• 549 Tablespoons vital wheat gluten (34.5 cups, or 7 of Bob’s Red Mill (22 oz) pkgs)
• 366 Tablespoons dough enhancer (optional ingredient) (23 cups, or 12 (1 lb) cans)
• 1281 cups of whole wheat flour (9 (45 lb) buckets, or 72 (#10) cans)*
• 366 Tablespoons active dry yeast (30 (4 oz) jars, or 8 (1 lb) pkgs instant yeast, i.e. SAF or Fleischmann’s)

4 Loaves Per Week

If one loaf a day is a bit much for your household, four loaves per week may be a better fit. (This is the amount I shoot for with my family of four.) This would mean you are making the above mentioned recipe twice each week, or 104 times in a year. Here are the amounts of ingredients to have on hand for that…

• 286 cups water (18 gallons)
• 35 cups of olive oil (2.2 gallons)
• 35 cups of honey (2.2 gallons)
• 208 Tablespoons brown sugar (624 teaspoons, or 3 (2 lb) bags)
• 104 Tablespoons sea salt (312 teaspoons, or 3 (26 oz) containers of salt)
• 312 Tablespoons vital wheat gluten (19.5 cups, or 4 of Bob’s Red Mill (22 oz) pkgs)
• 208 Tablespoons dough enhancer (optional ingredient) (13 cups, or 7 (1 lb) cans)
• 728 cups of whole wheat flour (5 (45 lb) buckets, or 40 (#10) cans)*
• 208 Tablespoons active dry yeast (17.5 (4 oz) jars, or 4.5 (1 lb) pkgs instant yeast, i.e. SAF or Fleischmann’s)

2 Loaves Per Week

Okay, and if you’ve got just yourself or you and a spouse at home, 2 loaves of bread each week is probably plenty. Just remember… we’re not talking about how much you eat right now because right now you still have access to all sorts of food from the store. But when this is all we’ve got, you’ll be happy to have those 2 loaves to get you through your lunch time meals. So here are the ingredients for that (it’s just half of the 4 loaves per week)…

• 143 cups of water (9 gallons)
• 17.5 cups of olive oil (1 gallon)
• 17.5 cups of honey (1 gallon)
• 104 Tablespoons of brown sugar (312 teaspoons, or 3 lbs)
• 52 Tablespoons of sea salt (156 teaspoons, or 1.5 (26 oz) containers of salt)
• 156 Tablespoons of vital wheat gluten (10 cups, or 2 of Bob’s Red Mill (22 oz) pkgs)
• 104 Tablespoons of dough enhancer (optional ingredient) (6.5 cups, or 3.5 (1 lb) cans)
• 364 cups of whole wheat flour (2.5 (45 lb) buckets, or 20 (#10) cans)*
• 104 Tablespoons active dry yeast (9 (4 oz) jars, or 2.5 (1 lb) pkgs instant yeast, i.e. SAF or Fleischmann’s)

{*Important Note: The original wheat amounts listed for the (45 lb) buckets and #10 cans was incorrect. As of 7/28/11 the amounts have been corrected.}

Now, one last thing to remember. Not all of these ingredients have an ultra long shelf life like our wheat does. Some of them need to be used up within a decent time frame. The ones that will last super long are the wheat, honey, salt, sugar (depending on how you store it), and yeast even has a pretty long shelf life (especially if you keep it in the freezer… it will pretty much last decades). However, your olive oil, wheat gluten and dough enhancer will not keep forever. They should last several years without a problem, but just remember to keep an eye on them while they’re sitting on your shelf because unless you’re actually making this much bread right now, you might start to have ingredients going bad. So don’t forget to use and rotate!

And on that note, if you haven’t already tried making homemade bread… do it! Not that you have to ONLY eat homemade bread (I’m trying to do about half and half right now), but you don’t want to wait until you HAVE to make it and stress yourself out even further in an emergency situation by trying to figure out the intricacies of dough. You want to be well acquainted and comfortable with the bread making process by the time any NEED rolls around.

Alright! Well! I hope that was helpful to someone or anyone! Good luck, and I’ll be sure to do this again sometime with another food storage staple.