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I would like to serve food to a friend who observes the restrictions against eating Chadash grain products, but I don't have access to a guide on identifying Yashan. However I have heard, for example, that certain grain products are known to always be made from winter wheat. Can you give me some simple rules of thumb to help me find flour and other grain products in the local supermarket that are certain to be Yashan? Please include guidelines for all times during the year.

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You can get a pdf of R' Yosef Herman's authoritative "Guide to Chodosh" by sending a blank email to chodosh@sefer.org. This will be the third and final issue (the season ends with the arrival of Pesach). There is some introductory information in the first issue, but I don't think it's available for download anymore.

There really isn't any easy rule of thumb, as one must take into account packing dates, place of manufacture, etc. for each ingredient. Keep in mind that anything from Eretz Yisrael with a reliable hechsher will be yoshon. It happens to be that gefilte fish is also always yoshon, for some reason. Anything else - check the Guide!

Kol Tuv.

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Dave that doesn't seem to be working im only getting last years version wouldn't they have updated it by now did they stop the email service?. – user1997 Oct 14 '12 at 2:57
This year's guide is not ready yet. It will probably become available in a couple of days. – Dave Oct 14 '12 at 4:37
@Dave Didn't Chodosh season start a couple months ago? – Double AA♦ Oct 14 '12 at 5:19
@DoubleAA - more like a few weeks ago. An email update sent in August stated as follows: "We are not able to publish the new Guide until the mashgichim and other sources update their Yoshon hashgocho information for the new season. Based on previous experience, all such needed information will not be available until after Sukkos. Meanwhile we will do our best to bridge the data gap as well as we can with updates such as this... – Dave Oct 14 '12 at 16:29
(cont.) "In the interim, those who have last year’s Guide may try to recalculate the codes given there for individual products to the current year and cutoff packing date. A copy of last year’s last Guide is still available by sending email to chodosh@sefer.com. If you do use that old Guide, remember that it has not been updated. It should only be used for package code guidance." – Dave Oct 14 '12 at 16:30

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