What Grains Do I Need to Start With?

If you ask people what grains you need to start milling, somebody will eventually hand you a list long enough to make you think you need a grain silo.

You don’t.

Start with what you actually bake. If you want bread, get a good hard wheat. Hard white is a nice place to start if you want a milder flavor. Hard red gives you a stronger wheat flavor.

If you also make biscuits, muffins, cookies, pancakes, or other tender stuff, grab some soft white wheat too.

That alone covers a ridiculous amount of baking.

You do not need durum, rye, spelt, einkorn, Khorasan, emmer, oats, corn, and six other grains sitting in buckets before you make your first loaf. Play with those later. Once you know you like milling, THEN start branching out and learning what the different grains bring to the table.

But in the beginning?

One hard wheat.
One soft wheat if you want it.

That’s enough to get you baking without turning your pantry into a seed catalog.