Spelt Organic, SuperPail

Organic Spelt, 43 lbs.

Our spelt grain is certified organic, triple-cleaned and perfect for baking & cooking purposes. 

Convenient & safe storage

Our spelt is certified organic and non-GMO, and comes in six-gallon buckets (or pails... another word for the same container), containing 43 lbs. net weight. When you store spelt grain at home, it needs to be protected in a couple of ways. First, it needs to be protected from a variety of little critters who'd like to get to it before you do. Weevils and rodents, for example. You also need to protect your spelt from picking up excessive additional moisture, which can be drawn from the atmosphere. The buckets our bulk spelt comes in provide full protection against these storage risks. They have airtight gasket-sealed lids, Mylar liners, and oxygen absorber packets that remove the oxygen from the air in the bucket after we put the lid on. The O2 absorbers leave an atmosphere of nitrogen in the bucket, because air consists almost entirely of oxygen and nitrogen. (The oxygen absorber packets themselves are completely food-safe, being made of powdered iron and salt, which are kept separate from the product itself.) Our buckets safely lock out pests, and biological processes are put "on hold" in the Mylar protected, oxygen-free nitrogen atmosphere, so your spelt berries enjoy complete peace and quiet until you want to use them. 

Beat oxidation

In whole-grain foods, the plant's cellular walls protect nutrients from oxidation. The process of oxidation begins to occur as soon as grain is ground, exposing the cell's contents to oxygen in the air. Flour that is several days (or more) old, has been exposed to oxygen that inevitably diminishes its nutritional value. The way to get full nutrition from whole grain foods is to mill them when you need them, right in your kitchen. Modern high-speed grain mills make it fast and easy to enjoy the freshest, best tasting and most nutritious food imaginable!

Super-cleaned

All of our spelt grain is triple-cleaned to ensure purity and protect your grain mill from any foreign objects. (Spelt that isn't sufficiently cleaned may contain small stones that will damage or destroy a grain mill... not to mention that you don't want such things in your food!)

Non-GMO

All of Pleasant Hill Grain's whole grain products are natural (non-GMO). Also, PHG does not sell any grains, beans, lentils, pulses or seeds sourced from China.

Spelt Uses & History

Spelt wheat (triticum spelta) has many of the same characteristics as common “bread wheat”. The earliest known existence of spelt is from 5000 BC, making it an ancient grain. In the Bronze Age spelt spread throughout central Europe, eventually becoming a staple grain. By the 20th century nearly all spelt wheat fields had been replaced by common wheat fields to achieve higher yields at a lower production cost. (Common wheat yields are about 40% higher than that of spelt.) Spelt is primarily grown in Germany and Switzerland now. The German word for spelt is “dinkel”. Spelt berries are slightly larger than common wheat berries, and they have a light red hue compared to white wheat.

Spelt costs more to produce than common wheat because spelt is a covered grain, whereas common wheat is naked, and it’s more expensive to remove the hull from covered grain than from naked grain. Covered grain has a thick, tightly attached hull and industrial-grade equipment is required for removing it, after harvesting. Naked grain has a much thinner, loosely attached hull that’s removed through a simple process in the field when the grain is harvested. Other terms for naked grain are “free-threshing” and “hulless”.

The process of removing hulls from grain is called threshing, and since hulls are inedible for humans, all grain must be threshed before it's ready for human consumption. Even though the outer husk has been removed, dehulled grain that’s had no further processing is still whole grain because the germ, bran and endosperm are all still intact.

Covered grains include millet, oats, einkorn, spelt (sometimes referred to as “hulled wheat”) and khorasan wheat. The thick, tight hull encasing hulled grains naturally protects the grains from pests and diseases, which makes them easier to grow organically. Covered grains are gaining popularity as their nutritional advantages are becoming better understood. Thanks to modern technology the once-laborious process of threshing covered grains has become much easier and more efficient.

Spelt contains all the essential amino acids, making it a complete protein. Proteins build and repair tissue and our bodies need a lot of them to stay strong and healthy. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and there are nine amino acids that our bodies can't produce on their own. Foods that contain all nine of these amino acids are called "complete proteins", and animal proteins such as red meat, eggs and milk are complete proteins, but most plant proteins are incomplete.

Spelt wheat has a significantly higher protein content than common wheat and is a rich source of B vitamins and manganese, as well as a good source of niacin, thiamin, and copper. As with other whole grains, spelt is also a good source of fiber, potassium, magnesium and iron.

Although spelt contains gluten, it’s easier to digest spelt than common wheat because the gluten in spelt is more water soluble, and it becomes weaker when heated. While this is good news for our digestive systems, it makes spelt flour a little more difficult to make bread with. The gluten development in spelt dough is more fragile than dough made with common wheat, so be careful not to over-knead spelt dough; over-kneading the dough would cause the gluten structure to break down and both the rise and texture would suffer. Spelt is an excellent choice for making bread, thanks to its nutritional qualities, flavor and texture. At Pleasant Hill Grain our favorite way to make sandwich bread is mixing 50/50 whole grain khorasan wheat flour with whole grain spelt flour. It’s a wonderful combination!

A correlation is sometimes made between spelt and farro. There are conflicting explanations for the basis of this correlation; some people consider farro to be polished spelt, emmer, or einkorn, while others say farro is a different ancient wheat altogether. In any case, spelt is sometimes referred to as farro grande. Because farro has had some or all of its bran removed, it cooks more quickly than whole wheat. Farro is used much like rice as a side dish, in casseroles, and in soups. To substitute whole spelt for farro, the spelt must be soaked overnight to soften the grain. Spelt can be cooked, but it’s most commonly ground into flour as a substitute for wheat flour.

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