How long would white flour last?

Cancheprepper - May 4, 2022

Advice

Hi y’all. I live in a country where it costs a ton to get cool prepping stuff (like oxygen absorbers and vacuum sealed bags and such) so I’m trying to think through extending the shelf life of white flour using what I have. Let’s say I fill a food-grade bucket and lid with 5-pound bags of flour, each sealed inside a gallon ziplock bag and then closed the bucket with the lid and kept it at room temperature out of direct sunlight. The expiration date of the flour is 6 months from its production date, but how long do you reckon it’d last in the situation I just described? Thanks!

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I’ve always heard that white flour has a 6 month shelf life as well, by cutting off air you may get a couple months more out of it. 

We’ve had white flour stored in our freezer for over a year and it still is perfect. The cold probably stops the oils in the flour from going rancid.

 

Thanks, Bradical. Good to know your perspective: a few months but don’t count on long-term storage.

 

Best way to have wheat flour long term is to store the wheat berries, and then grind them into flour when needed.  Wheat berries can store for 25+ years.

You have access to wheat berries?

 

We do, but the quality is sometimes off (I have to do a manual search for small stones that occasionally appear). I’ve gotten lazy and had just been resorting to already-ground flour. For long-term though, you’re right, Redneck. I need to get back on the wheat berry bandwagon.

 

Redneck is right that wheat berries are the way to go for 1-25 year storage. Some options with that, Costco big bag and then mylar bag them yourself with moisture absorbers for extra long storage, many people here buy off of Azure Standard, or you can buy precanned wheat berries that require no work from somewhere like the LDS church cannery.

Question to you Redneck, how long would a large 50lb bag of wheat berries from Costco last without any preservation techniques applied? Just throwing the bag in the cupboard and forgetting.

 

I can’t answer for certain.  If you Google it, you get all sorts of answers.  I brought in many 40lb Emergency Essential buckets of wheat that I bought online on Walmart & got free freight.  It was actually a steal back then, with the free freight.  Emergency Essentials packages the berries in food grade plastic pails with gasket seal and use Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.  Here is a current pic but they have been out of stock a long time.

 

They still have these available with free shipping. Not quite the steal as the 40 lb bucket you got, but still available…

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Augason-Farms-Hard-White-Wheat-Emergency-Food-Storage-4-Gallon-Pail/22001478

 

I’ve never been a fan of Augason Farms stored foods.  From my recollection, they don’t use oxygen absorbers or desiccants and I don’t think they use Mylar bags either.  Yet they still say 30 year shelf life, so what do I know?

 

I agree wheat berries are the way to go, but have a functional electric and non-electric way to grind them, and practice using them before you need them — they’ll be different than what you are use to getting from the store. 

I’d argue that wheat, stored in a relatively dry, cool, dark, protected space will last 30+ years. 

 

White flour, which is less nutritional, will last the longest.

As we know, the threats to our long term food storage are: light, heat, humidity, bugs/pests. So —like you basically said—if you store the flour in Mylar (best case scenario), inside plastic buckets, that are kept in a cool, dark place it’ll maximize it’s storage time.

You’ll know if flour goes bad, it’ll smell musty/rancid. If it still smells neutral, then it’s fine. You may get weevils in it, but they won’t hurt you and can easily be sifted out if you need to use it. If your flour is old—say 3-5+ years—but has been stored well and still looks and smells good it’s useable. It may not work as well for bread, or other items that have to rise. Our plan, in that eventuality, is to use it to make tortillas (or other unleavened baked goods). 

And, as always, rotate your flour. If you use it and replace it you’ll ensure it stays as fresh as possible. And I know this is a pain in the ass, we all want preps we can just store away “just in case” lol. 

 

I’ve heard tell of hard tack made from white flour from the civil war era that is still as edible as it was when it was made. (Although hard tack is pretty inedible to begin with)

I actually like hard-tack after it’s soaked in water for ten minutes and then been fried in bacon fat with eggs and bacon.

 

We routinely store white flour for over a year – sometimes close to two years – and it has never “gone bad” in that time, though it has very rarely gotten (edible) bugs living in it.  The problem is that most flour contains a certain number of bug eggs when it comes from the store, and if you haven’t vacuum packed it, they have enough oxygen to hatch out and reproduce. 

I would not suggest packing it in a 5 gallon bucket as you describe, because that would make rotating it out one bag at a time difficult.  My advice would be to only buy the amount you normally use in about a year, place each in a plastic bag or better yet, pour into an air tight canister set (or empty plastic jars with tight fitting lids) and store in a cabinet where they are easy to rotate. 

 

I agree, we have never had flour go bad, some of what I have in my cupboard is a couple of years old. If you can keep it dry and free of vermin it will last. Vacuum packing is one way to go but failing that a sealed container will protect the flour in its original packaging.

 

So you would vacuum seal the flour inside it’s original packaging right? Makes sense because otherwise loose flour would get sucked into the vacuum.

 

We vacuum sealed flour without the paper packaging. No issues. 

 

Great question! I have read that with air absorbers and vaccum packed after being frozen to kill off any bugs, that its good for year. I did that exact process this year. We will see in a couple years when I open my buckets

 

Are you storing all purpose white flour? Stored in a cool place? If yes, I’ve used flour that is almost two years old and it still tastes fresh. The flour I buy has a “best by” date on the bag — not a “use by” date, which is my sign it is good for longer than the date on the package. As noted by others, my biggest problem is with bugs.  Ziplock bags and buckets won’t help if the bugs and/or eggs are already in the flour. I’ve had the best luck by freezing the flour for 3 days, thawing the flour, waiting about 3 weeks, and then freezing it again for 3 days.