I really prefer whole grain flours and cereals, but I don’t use them up fast enough. They always go bitter before I’m halfway through the package. Does anybody have any tips on how to store them?
I do seal them into ziplock bags, and keeping them in the freezer didn’t seem to help.
Any ideas?
Why don’t you invest in a grinder and just grind what you need on the day? I bet that would taste the best.
How long is that?
They still go bitter fairly quickly. Doesn’t seem to matter whether they’ve been ground or not. The processed flour lasts forever, but the whole grain gets bitter.
I’d say six weeks at the shortest. The white flour is fine, and has been in the pantry for months longer than the ten-grain and the whole wheat; but the latter two have both turned bitter.
Google survivalist stores or organizations.
Those people are experts in storing all kinds of foods long term.
Also, the Mormon Church members advocate food storage. If you are not afraid of having them come and ring your doorbell, you might want to call them and see if they will send you any pamphlets.
I keep my flours (white, whole grain, and “yellow” (which is something between the two)), for 1 to 1 and a half months, outside the fridge, in a relatively dry and shady place.
I had no problems with bitterness or the flour going bad.
But if I keep them for many more moths I have bug issues.
In the Mediterranean, the villages, traditionally, keep the flour all year round, in the cool dry basement. within a big wooden box (could be as big as a closet).
But I don’t know what they do about the bugs.
They probably screen them out :rolleyes: .
Maybe the fridge is the problem. The flour possibly absorbs the smell and taste of other foods.
Or you might have humidity issues.
Nice typo!
Yes, I stopped keeping it in the freezer because even in the ziplocks it seemed to pick up a musty smell.
There’s no question that we have extreme humidity here - I live in Northern Virginia. I’m also not a big fan of air conditioning. If it goes below 75% I start to get nose bleeds, LOL!
I think I’ll try adding a muslin bag of rice to each flour bag. Maybe keeping the moisture trapped will help?
Any ideas on better food-safe methods for controlling humidity inside the package?
Charlie: Yes, but they are insanely expensive and packaged in gas-stabilized cans. I need to be able to access the food stuffs every couple of weeks, and the whole point here is to save money.
You could try big glass jars, or big tin cans, or just plastic containers.
Just make sure to put the flour in them, during a relatively dry day (or better after it’s been a couple of dry days in a row)
I doubt the rice is appreciably more absorbent than the flour. Seems like that would be similar to throwing a red sponge into a bag of blue sponges.
You could see if one of those Food Saver shrink-wrap dealies works. I’ve seen them for a couple bucks at the Goodwill. At least it would be useful for other things as well, so long as you have the cupboard space (I do not). Other than that, I would have thought the fridge/freezer would do the trick. On the rare occasions I’ve bought buckwheat flour, I’ve successfully kept the box in the fridge.
I’ve seen on some of those prepper shows (Don’t judge me) people putting a chunk of dry ice in with grains to displace the oxygen. You’ve got to gauge container size and dry ice weight and burp the container once or twice to let excess pressure out.