Posted: 2/27/2012 10:25:38 AM EDT
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Is it better to store white or wheat?
Both would be ground. |
| If you simply must go with pre-milled flour, use white. Milling whole wheat releases oils that causes the flour to go rancid relatively quickly (couple of months on the shelf, 6 months-1 year if sealed in the fridge). Whole, unmilled wheat berries, OTOH, last for 30 years+ if stored correctly. |
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If you simply must go with pre-milled flour, use white. Milling whole wheat releases oils that causes the flour to go rancid relatively quickly (couple of months on the shelf, 6 months-1 year if sealed in the fridge). Whole, unmilled wheat berries, OTOH, last for 30 years+ if stored correctly. If your going to start storing whole berries, don't forget a nice wheat grinder to mill with. There is a lot of great books out there for beginners using whole wheat berries in your preps. Good luck. |
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If you simply must go with pre-milled flour, use white. Milling whole wheat releases oils that causes the flour to go rancid relatively quickly (couple of months on the shelf, 6 months-1 year if sealed in the fridge). Whole, unmilled wheat berries, OTOH, last for 30 years+ if stored correctly. ^ | | | Good accurate information. |
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If you simply must go with pre-milled flour, use white. Milling whole wheat releases oils that causes the flour to go rancid relatively quickly (couple of months on the shelf, 6 months-1 year if sealed in the fridge). Whole, unmilled wheat berries, OTOH, last for 30 years+ if stored correctly. Thank you for the information. Do you know how long the white flour will last? |
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If you simply must go with pre-milled flour, use white. Milling whole wheat releases oils that causes the flour to go rancid relatively quickly (couple of months on the shelf, 6 months-1 year if sealed in the fridge). Whole, unmilled wheat berries, OTOH, last for 30 years+ if stored correctly. Thank you for the information. Do you know how long the white flour will last? Not first-hand. I know about the whole wheat because I had some go belly-up stored in the fridge (yeck). I know LDS sells white flour vacuum-packed in #10 cans, so I assume it's got a fairly long shelf life if stored correctly. But processed white flour is so nutritionally inferior to whole wheat that I'm not sure it's worth the trouble of storing long-term. In a situation where you have to rely on stored preps, you're going to want your supplies to be as nourishing and nutrient-dense as possible. Here's a pretty good PDF on wheat/flour storage: Utah State University, Home Storage of Wheat ETA: besides, milling your own whole wheat is a lot more fun. 
I think the day we took delivery of our grain mill was the day I realized I'd crossed the border from being a "guy living in the country" to being "a prepper" (for better or worse). Since then, we've started raising our own patch of wheat every year, cutting and cleaning by hand. There something pretty rewarding about being able to go all the way from seed to loaf completely independently of other inputs. |
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Not to oversimplify things, however, I had some issues with weevils contaminating my flour, cornbread, and pasta. Cardboard, plastic bag, and paper packaging are not sufficient to prevent this. Once you purchase a product that is contaminated, it will easily get into alot of other stuff if it isn't in a sufficient strength and sealed container. Luckily I caught it quick and didn't lose much. My stores mainly consist of buying bulk to save money, or buying stuff on sale to ride out the wait for the next sale. I don't have a lot, but you gotta protect your investment if you want long term savings (or storage). |
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The weevils contaminating white flour are not necessarily from an outside source. They can be from eggs present in the wheat at the time of processing. It just takes them a while to "hatch out".
If you are storing white flour, (The Mrs. and I usually try to keep 30 to 60 lbs on hand at any given time, that we rotate through.) then you should place your bags in the freezer for a week or so, prior to placing them into your long term (or medium term) storage. This will kill off the weevil eggs/larvae that would otherwise hatch out. This applies to store bought corn meal also. After the freezer treatment I can fit about 4 five lb bags of flour or meal into a 5 gal bucket (still in the bag) either with or without the mylar bag liner. We go through around around 40 lbs in 6 months to a year depending on how many biscuits, cobblers, and fried pies that the Mrs. makes and have never had any trouble with bugs. After you go past a year I'm not sure how much longer it would be palatable, but I'm betting it would go at least 2 to 3 years. FWIW MIKE |
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Do oxygen absorbers not rob the storage environment of the necessary air for bug to survive? Yes I believe that it pretty much uses up the oxygen in the container as long as it remains sealed and isn't too small for the container. The Mormon storehouse (Provident Living) shows that their canned white flower is good for 10 years while sealed in the #10 can. I am pretty sure there is one absorber in the can. Hope this helps |
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The Mormon storehouse (Provident Living) shows that their canned white flower is good for 10 years while sealed in the #10 can. I am pretty sure there is one absorber in the can. Yes, one O2 absorber, and the cans filled full to minimize how much O2 is in there to begin with. |
| Our household is currently using all purpose white flour for our preps. We buy it in bulk at sams club, and then package it in the house with heavy duty 1 gallon zip lock bags. We leave the zip lock bags in the freezer for a week or so, then remove them and let them sit on the counter for a day or two, then place the 1 gallon bags in a 5 gallon bucket. This is the flour we rotate thru normally. This spring we are making the jump to wheat berries and a grinder, but that is a whole other discussion. I have never had a problem with weevils, or flour going bad, our bags are usually used in less then 1.5 years. |
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The weevils contaminating white flour are not necessarily from an outside source. They can be from eggs present in the wheat at the time of processing. It just takes them a while to "hatch out". If you are storing white flour, (The Mrs. and I usually try to keep 30 to 60 lbs on hand at any given time, that we rotate through.) then you should place your bags in the freezer for a week or so, prior to placing them into your long term (or medium term) storage. This will kill off the weevil eggs/larvae that would otherwise hatch out. This applies to store bought corn meal also. After the freezer treatment I can fit about 4 five lb bags of flour or meal into a 5 gal bucket (still in the bag) either with or without the mylar bag liner. We go through around around 40 lbs in 6 months to a year depending on how many biscuits, cobblers, and fried pies that the Mrs. makes and have never had any trouble with bugs. After you go past a year I'm not sure how much longer it would be palatable, but I'm betting it would go at least 2 to 3 years. FWIW MIKE I always figured the weevils were bonus protein. 
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If you simply must go with pre-milled flour, use white. Milling whole wheat releases oils that causes the flour to go rancid relatively quickly (couple of months on the shelf, 6 months-1 year if sealed in the fridge). I have heard that over and over, however my personal experience was this: I bought about 100lbs of wheat flour 2007-ish. It all expired mid-2009. Because I had moved and put everything into (climate controlled) storage, I lost track of it all until this year. 2 years of the storage were NOT climate controlled, but in my garage here in Texas. I was going to throw it all out, but I opened the wheat flour and wheat graham flour (all expired mid 2009) two months ago. It smelled fine, and looked fine. I have used it a few times now and had no problems whatsoever, and no bad taste. So my personal experience: my wheat flour from SAMS club, in original packaging, which expired 2 1/2 years ago and was kept in a Rubbermaid bin in storage for at least 4 years (some of that time NOT climate controlled) is still perfectly good for use. 
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So my personal experience: my wheat flour from SAMS club, in original packaging, which expired 2 1/2 years ago and was kept in a Rubbermaid bin in storage for at least 4 years (some of that time NOT climate controlled) is still perfectly good for use. http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6228/6248218643_00c1bc266c_z.jpg I don't doubt ya... I imagine that as in all things, YMMV. All I can say from experience is that whole wheat flour I grind myself doesn't last longer than a few months in the fridge. That's what's nice about SF... get to hear various real first-hand experiences. |