Homemade Postum-type Drink

My friend, Terri, loves Postum and since it is no longer available in the stores I set out to see if I could duplicate it. I found several recipes for homemade Postum on the internet at several sites but then I found that I didn't have wheat bran as such and there wasn't any at our store. So, the following recipe is a combination of the recipes that I found on line. It isn't quite the same as the real thing but fairly close.


Homemade Postum

4 Cups of cracked wheat, do not sift out flour, use it all
2 C coarsely ground corn meal
1/2 C molasses

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well with your hands. Make sure the grain and bran and corn are well combined and that the molasses is thoroughly mixed in. This takes awhile, probably 5 to 10 minutes to make sure the molasses is distributed evenly on all the grains, no lumps. Spread the mixture onto two baking sheets with sides on them and bake in a 300 degree oven for about 5 hours. You must stir the mixture every 20-30 minutes to make it bake evenly. Bake till a dark mahogany color. It may have some smoke during the last hour or so. Do not use a hotter oven as it will burn. Place the pans on wire racks to cool, stirring the mixture occasionally to cool faster. Store in airtight containers

This is not an instant hot drink and has to be either brewed the same as coffee or steeped like tea. Since we have a coffee machine in the lodges at the KOA, we tried that and it worked very well. However, I do not want to have a coffee machine on my cabinet so tried boiling it and steeping it. I didn't like the boiling method but did like the steeping. I put the mix in a tea ball and poured the hot water in the cup and let it sit as one would a tea bag. Worked well.

Use 2 tablespoons of mixture to 1 1/2 cups of water.