Wheat flour with a yellowish tinge may have bad oil seeping out of the grains. If your corn flour has a blueish hue, it may be starting to grow mold. Rancid flour is very easy to detect if you just smell it.
In fact, when you open the flour bag or container, you will likely be hit with a musty, sour smell that clearly indicates the flour is bad. If you still smell nothing, you flour is probably just fine to use! The smell of bad flour is hard to miss. While it is easy to just keep flour in the bag that it came in, rolling the top over and putting it in the pantry, this method really only works if you use your flour frequently. If you tend to have a bag of flour hanging around for several months, you may want to consider a better method of storage.
First, put the flour in an airtight container link to amazon. A plastic or glass container with a tight fitting lid is the best option. Next, place the flour container in the fridge. Keeping in in a cold place will actually double the shelf life of the flour, preventing any oils from going bad. In addition, weevils cannot survive in a fridge so there will be no bugs in your flour either! A much better storage idea to increase the life of your flour.
No one wants to have bad flour on their hands, however, if your flour has been sitting around for a while, it may go bad!
Now you are well equipped to recognize when flour is bad, know why it has gone bad and you know what to do about it. Essentially, if the flour is bad, throw it away!
You can also just try to make an effort to bake more- everyone could use some more baked goods in their lives! Or Vice Versa? I accept the Privacy Policy. Any vessel similar to the one for keeping coffee or salt will be usable, but Mason jar and flip-flop containers are also excellent solutions. Avoid placing the flour bag on the floor even if you are sure that there is no moisture in your pantry. The coldness may lead to clumping and premature spoilage. Alternative flours, like coconut or almond, have a short shelf life.
You will probably use them less often than whole grain or all-purpose flour, so it is better to place bags in a fridge. Still, moisture and cold can decrease their quality after picking up the odor from other food.
Prevent these problems by putting flour in an airtight container, with or without the original package. Always write down the date if you plan to throw away the original package. Otherwise, you will probably forget when you bought the flour and leave it in a fridge for too long. Take it out before using it, the same as you would do with a frozen flour.
Keep in mind that you can end up with firm cookies full of lumps when using flour straight from the fridge. Believe it or not, it can go rancid and spoil even in a freezer.
Always divide it into several smaller zip lock bags and defrost only as much as you need. The old flour can be rancid and compromise the quality of the fresh one. Another problem is weevils and other pantry bugs. Freezing is a great way to preserve flour infected by weevils because low temperatures destroy both larvae and adult insects. Put it in a freezer for a couple of days, then thaw and sift it thoroughly before using it as usual. Plus, some of them have more vegetable fats than others, like whole-grain type, so freezing is a great way to keep it safe from going rancid.
Flour usually comes in paper or cardboard packages. If you put an unopened package in the freezer, high moisture will damage it and compromise the flour quality. Personal preference comes in to play here. Consider taste testing a pinch of flour to make sure that it tastes normal because that may turn bad before the smell goes.
If the smell and taste is not rancid, there is really no reason to toss flour. Also take a look at the color, as it should not change.
The outcome of the product, if you are baking or cooking, should not be strongly effected by the "best by" date. It is just important to be aware of the time frame for how long past the "best by" date you should start paying closer attention to your flour.
One of the worst things you can do for your flour is leaving it out in the open in that punctured bag you struggled to get open in the first place. That exposes the flour to unwanted heat and moisture.
In general, the FDA recommends that shelf-stable foods, like flour, be stored in dry, cool cabinets. That should work too. There are at least a few types of flour out there besides wheat flour, like cornflour or potato flour. Whole grain flours contain more oil than white flours, and therefore their quality degrades faster. Most bags of flour come with a best-by date. That date is only a rough estimate of how long the flour should retain its quality.
How long does flour last after the best-by date? The best you can get here are rough estimates. For white flour, it should last in good quality for about a year if stored at room temperature, and two years if chilled in the fridge or freezer. Whole wheat flour, as mentioned earlier, is more volatile, and will retain its quality for only about 3 months, 6 months if chilled in the fridge and about a year if frozen.
Of course, all these periods are only estimates and for the best quality only.
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