Heat Pad Filling

Wheat Bag Fillings Microwave Heat Packs can vary from all natural wheat to cherrystones and millet seeds. Many people prefer the filling for their heat pack to be natural which is why many customers say the best filling for a wheat bag is wheat.

Wheat has been used as a filler for heat packs since wheat bags first came onto the market in the early 1990's in the UK and wheat even today remains the most popular of all fillings and wheat is used to fill WheatyBags® Brand Wheat Bags. Wheat has a very faint natural aroma when cold though it is hardly noticeable at all though, once warmed up it has a lovely warm smell that we can only describe as totally natural and like warmed wheat.

Wheat, being a totally natural plant-based product is full of moisture and all wheat bags will be damp when first warmed in the microwave. This will dry over time though we do not recommend that you try to dry out this moisture by overheating the heat pack and just let it dry up over time. Once the wheat bag becomes totally dry then we advise placing a cup of water inside the microwave to help retain some moisture in the wheat which also helps overheating.

Alternative fillings for heat packs include cherrystones. Cherrystone Pillows use another totally natural filling and cherry stones are the central core or pip, seed or otherwise known as stone from the middle of a cherry. Cherrystones are then cleaned in the food processing plant and are dried to produce a great filler for cherrystone pillows. Cherrystones are larger in size that wheat and all cherrystones used in heat pillows make for a firmer pillow than wheat filled version though they heat up and provide warmth just the same way as wheat bags do. Cherrystones, when warmed up, have a natural aroma that is stronger than the wheat-filled heat packs and as such, we provide all our cherrystone pillows with natural lavender.

Millet Seeds are also used in some of our heat packs for the microwave though this seed is very small and costly. Millet seeds are used in some of our heated eye masks as one of the best seeds that will provide warmth for warming the eyes and as such as don't tend to use this filling in much larger heat packs where wheat comes into its own as the better filling.

Buckwheat is used as a filling for our traditional sleep pillows and cushions and is never heated in the microwave as a heat pack as it is a very dry natural product and does not retain any heat at all, hence never to be warmed up.

We've listed "Water" as one of our warmer fillings simply to suggest its use with hot water bottles.