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OK to freeze flour?

18 years ago

Today I bought 50 lbs of flour in 5 lb sacks. I placed the sacks in plastic shopping bags and placed in my freezer which is getting a bit low this time of year. With all the baking I do, figured I get ahead of the price increases, for the time being anyway. Anyone freeze flour?

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Comments (13)

annie1992
18 years ago
Hey, Shirley, it's nice to see you back!

I freeze whole grain flours all the time, it keeps them from getting rancid. I don't usually freeze all purpose because I use it fast enough, but I'm told that freezing it will keep it "bug free" in addition to storage.

Nope, not enough room in MY freezer for flour, I keep taking stuff out and putting other stuff back in!

Annie
disneyginger
18 years ago
I freeze flour all the time. It really does help keep it from getting weevils and other little flour critters. And, it is just fine to use later.

I have only brought home flour critters ONCE. And, that was ENOUGH!

Once you see the litle flying moth type critters, you know you have trouble, and they can get into EVERYTHING from pasta and flour to you name it!

Supposedly they are just added protien and won't hurt you, but the thought of eating bugs doesn't settle well with me, so I threw out my whole pantry, scoured and santitized it, then started over after a week of letting things settle.

I buy King Arthur flour almost exclusively these days and I have never had a problem and my baked goods turn out better than they ever have.

I do buy some Southern Flours from time to time, like White Lily and store them in the freezer for when I make cakes and things like coffee cakes and doughnuts.
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Hazel, Hmm, I wonder if we googled if we'd find a circus tent company? Probably, but I doubt we could afford a circus tent, and I'm fairly sure my DH wouldn't like the idea of erecting a circus tent in our yard---he wouldn't like that idea at all. One year I put up one of those 10' x 10' folding canopies (like you use for shade while tailgating or camping or whatever) over my favorite plum tree and wrapped the whole thing in row cover fabric. My plums survived that freeze, but it was an incredible amount of work and my plum trees are too big now for that to even be a consideration. Really, in the year I did it, my tree was already too big and I had to do some pruning to make it fit, and I really wasn't happy about that either. Mike, That's a perfect comment about our weather----it is so, so true! I am familiar with how Fruitnut grows his fruit in his greenhouse way out there in west Texas, and if I had a greenhouse that size, I'd likely do the same. I think he is near El Paso? What he does is awesome and I admire how disciplined he is in maintaining his fruit tree size and such. For ordinary dirt gardeners like us, though, the occasional late freeze is always going to be a risk. Gardening is never going to be risk-free and is never going to provide guaranteed results. Kim, It works up to a point, but it just depends on how cold the weather is. You can protect fruit that way (sometimes, results are not guaranteed) and the professional orchardists/commercial growers often do. I think stone fruit is good down to 28 degrees for a limited time frame, but I don't remember if it is 1 hour or 2 or 4 or whatever. Hazel, I've done that before, with mixed results. Some years it worked, others it didn't. Likely the variability has to do with how cold the temperature dropped and how long it stayed that low. It rained here heavily a couple of weeks ago. It rained here yesterday. It is raining here right now and we're supposed to have rain on and off through 6 p.m. It is too bad all this rain couldn't wait and fall during the hours this weekend when the temperatures are in the danger range. I might run a sprinkler on Saturday night, or I might not. We're already so horribly wet that the idea of adding more water to the mix is not a very appealing one. It was bad enough when all the different varieties of stone fruit trees in our yard bloomed early, but then when the Mexican plums and Chickasaw plums bloomed early, I knew exactly what it meant----we were going to have a "late" freeze (which isn't really late, I doubt anyone in OK has hit their average last freeze date yet) that would kill, or at least threaten to kill, all the fruit. It has happened every time the native fruits have bloomed early since we moved here, except for one year. Our forecast has deteriorated, and since it updates frequently, who knows what we will end up with, but currently my forecast overnight lows are 38 for tonight, 32 for Sat, and 35 for Sunday. If I get a chance in between thunderstorms, I'll cover up the two tomato beds today and likely just leave them covered all weekend. If our temperatures don't drop lower than forecast, the fruit trees should be fine, but then our temperatures almost always drop lower than forecast at this time of the year, so I won't be surprised if that happens. If we're going to hit 32 here, then surely some parts of northern OK must be going to drop well into the 20s. Dawn
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Can't imagine freezing would be a problem?!? I think this kind of question often comes up when people are thinking... don't want to throw this away but don't know what else to do with it?? If that's the case, I say just go for it. Was at a baby shower several years ago (I was one of the "hostesses")... and we ended up with WAY more food than we really needed. Ono of the other women was getting ready to just toss a LOT of slice cheeses and lunch meats!?! I took a bunch of it home, used some and froze some. "Hard" meats (salami, pepperoni, etc) froze and thawed fairly well. "Wet" meats (like deli ham, turkey, etc.) was really watery after thawing. Worked well in a casserole after thawing, but not so great for sandwiches... a texture, not a taste problem. Same went for cheese. Chunks/slices of harder cheeses (Swiss, provolone, cheddar) froze well. Softer cheese (American, Gouda, Muenster) froze just fine but were better suited for a mac & cheese after thawing. If it's a matter of needing to do SOMETHING with the kraut and kielbasa (other than sending it my way), I don't think you have much to lose by freezing.
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doucanoe
18 years ago
Actually, the freezer is where I keep my flour with the exception of a few lbs. of AP which I use regularly.

Linda
kayskats
18 years ago
thanks, folks ....

being a southener, I swear by White Lily flour and cornmeal, which can't be found in my area in Maryland. I've ordered (and frozen) White Lily Corn meal with great results. However, for some unknow reason, I didn't think about freezing flour -- thought it'd pick up too much moistured.

Thanks to all of you, I can now have my fave flour on hand.
lpinkmountain
18 years ago
I freeze my flour, (actually all types of grain meals) but seal in plastic to prevent it from picking up moisture and flavors from anything that might be lurking around in there. Being single and not much of a baker I don't use it up fast enough to leave a lot on the shelf.
beanthere_dunthat
18 years ago
Yep. I freeze any grain that comes into the house for at least three days to discourage any univited "guests" fro mhatching. if I know it's going to be a while until I get to use the grain, it stays in the freezer. I double wrap it (or break it down and use the food vac on it) to avoid condensation (from open/cosing the freezer and keep it from picking up that freezer smell. (I don't have a separate freezer, so I sometimes notice the fridge smells "migrate" to the freezer.

And I completely agree with you about White Lily. IMO, it's the only flour that makes a "proper" biscuit or scone.
song98
18 years ago
I know this thread is about freezing flour (which, like others, I do all the time) but after White Lily flour had been mentioned, I have to comment. I have tried so many other brands of flour to make biscuits, but NO OTHER BRAND EVEN COMES CLOSE TO MAKING OUTSTANDING BISCUITS LIKE WHITE LILY DOES!! With White Lily self-rising flour, it is hard to fail! With White lily, my biscuits always turn out to be flaky and light and delicious! Unfortunately, I can no longer get White Lily flour here where I live, so I have to order it on line and put the extra bags in the freezer.
sally2_gw
18 years ago
Me too, I freeze flour and other grains, except for my AP flour.

What's odd is that here in the Dallas area I haven't been able to find White Lily Flour, either. What's up with that, is Dallas not Southern enough? I've not tried it, but I'd like to.

Sally
donnar57
18 years ago
I freeze all flour - the only flour not in the freezer is whatever is in my canister at the time. Like another poster above, all it took was one time when I had creatures in the flour, to make me sold on keeping flour in the freezer. I'm told that bay leaves will also help keep critters out.

I also freeze rice, pasta, and even some pasta mixes. Then again - I have a 14.0 cu ft chest freezer, so I have a lot of space in my freezer. The door shelves of my side-by-side also contains flour - open and in big zippered freezer bags.

DonnaR/CA
dixiedog_2007
18 years ago
I freeze flour ALL the time now unless I am going to use it VERY quickly. With the humidity here - bread and all does not do well sitting out or in the pantry.

After buying my first bread machine and buying "bulk" quanity of flour I learned the hard way. Almost everything in my pantry had to be thrown away due to moths/worms and such. It was awful. NEVER again!!!
beanthere_dunthat
18 years ago
Sally, I think Texas is sort of like Maryland and Kentucky -- they move in and out of being "southern" depending on whose making the map. :) I grew up in NC and at that time we sort of considered Maryland "north" and Texas "Western". :)

White Lily does ship, but you have to buy quite a bit to make the shipping worthwhile.
grainlady_ks
18 years ago
If you can't find White Lily, some other brands of bleached Southern All-Purpose flour are: Martha White, Gladiola, and Red Band. - Grainlady
partst
18 years ago
Can someone tell me how you package uncooked rice for freezing?? Do you freeze in original package or wrap tightly and put it in zip locks or what? We donÂt eat it often I am always afraid it will have gone bad. Sometimes I will cook an entire package and freeze it in 1 cup packages for when I just need a small amount and that works out good.

Thank, Claudia

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