Smell it. It should keep for years double bagged in the fridge unless mold/moisture gets into it, which you would see if it were growing. Let a few spoonsful warm up to room temperature. Smell it. Taste it. If it smells rancid or tastes a lot more bitter than it should, throw it out. That smell/taste really does mean it's rancid. If it looks, smells and tastes normal, it's fine.

Do let the amount you're baking with warm up completely, however. Flour, especially whole wheat, can act weird if it's cold.

Yes--years. Not 10 years maybe 1.5 or 2 years. Sometimes I mix 25/75 whole wheat to all purpose flour in recipes to use what's in the frige.

I disagree with years. I detect an off taste in whole grain flours in under a year. I can small rancid a mile away....I also taste it....but hear that there is some danger of salmonella in un cooked flour.

Before I tossed it though I would mix up a little as a pancake and cook in a fry pan to see what it tastes like....just flour....1/4 cup or so, pinch of salr 1/4 tsp baking powder....a teaspoon of oil or soft butter and milk to make a batter.....fry it up and see what you think.

I store it in the freezer if it only has a few months left in the "best by" date. I would not keep it for years in the fridge, but you should be able to smell it to tell whether it has become rancid.

I would do what Linda suggests and taste a small sample as a pancake. Of course it won't taste like a pancake without egg, but you can still taste whether it has gone bad or not.

You did not tell us how long is a long time. Months are one thing, but years are quite another.

Yes, whole wheat will go rancid and you will know it. If it is kept cold and contained well it will keep pretty good for a year or a bit more, and maybe even longer.

I have some in the outside fridge that has been there for over a year and I just opened a bag last week and it is fine.

Just use your nose to smell for the rancid if it is there. It can be subltle, though, and you may have to do a little cook test with it.

Without knowing how long is too long or how your flour is kept, it is not really feasible to offer any advice other than to taste and smell it and make your own decison. But, be assured that it does not go bad in short time and will keep in the freezer for a respectable period of time.

Wednesday morning, it's been bagged in the refrigerator for 1 year and a month since it was opened.

I don't have room in the freezer for it. I have it in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator.

I can tell by the taste (just a bit on my tongue) or the smell. It takes on that rancid characteristic of old oils or nuts if too old, pretty distinct. I do freeze mine, have only just a few recipes that call for whole wheat.

All whole grains, those that contain some of the bran and germ will spoil rather rapidly. there is some chance of mold which will make you sick....but not likely as you have stored it. But even stored in the freezer, whole grains will get rancid.

I tossed about 3 pounds of rye flour a bit ago because it plainly smelled rancid and I hadn't had it a year.....and Iw as at my daughters a while back and asked if she had some corn meal to sprinkle on the pan before baking some bread....it was so rancid I dodn't even want to use it on the bottom of the bread.

Rancid won't make you sick but it tastes bad to me!

I store cornmeal in the freezer also, but I use a lot more whole wheat flour than I do cornmeal. I also store semolina and vital wheat gluten in the freezer, but they are in small bags because I do not use that much of them. I do go through these fairly quickly, but I once bought some VWG that had expired, and I had to take it back to the store. Now I carefully check expiration dates on VWG before buying and store it immediately in the freezer.

I go through so much whole wheat flour that it does not have time to go bad. I make 100% whole wheat bread about every other week, and this recipe also has VWG in it.

I generally use semolina on the pizza peel instead of cornmeal, but yesterday I had to use cornmeal, and while I did not notice the taste, I did notice that it was much worse about burning than semolina. Our pizza oven gets to 950°, and if there is any cornmeal left on the pizza stone, it will easily burn. We bake two pizzas in quick succession, and Kevin said that he cannot clean off the stone between them. I'm going to look for a tool to do this, but I'm hoping the peel will do the job.

I've been going through my pantry this week, and the only flours/grains that were rancid (last checked about a year ago, if they haven't been used) were the gluten free ones, all of which bit it. I wasn't surprised about the kind with the beans in it, because of the oil, but while it was the worst the two other kinds that were mostly rice and starch were also goners. Some were backups and still sealed. Usually it's the exposure to air that brings out the rancid, which is oxidation.