"Raymond Kenyon" <thekenyons@mindspring.com> asked:
>Does flour have a shelf life? I made Semolina/Sesame bread with Durham
>flour that was about 6 years old and it came out like pancake batter. I
>don't bake that often, and was wondering if the different flours I store
>have an expiration date?
Yes.
The date isn't posted on most brands of flour, and the useful life of flour
depends on the kind of flour and how it's stored.
The less refined a flour is, such as a whole wheat flour or ground corn,
the more oils it has in it, and the quicker it will turn rancid.
Refrigerating, or freezing, flour will extend its life expectancy
considerably. If a whole grain flour has not been treated with a
preservative or frozen, it will deteriorate very quickly. I wouldn't store
a whole wheat flour much past 3 to 6 months. If that.
When I first got my KitchenAid grain mill, I ground some corn into corn
meal and used it at once. It made SUCH a change in the corn bread, I
couldn't believe it was the same recipe. The stuff in the store just can't
compete.
With more highly refined flours, there is less to decompose, however, they
do deteriorate. The former owner of a bakery in this area had about 40
sacks of flour stored in a storage locker and wanted me to use them. He
swore they were "just fine" even though they were over 4 years old. They
weren't. The bread flour and patent flour handled nicely. The breads rose
well. The browned well. And tasted rancid.
A check on the net suggests that even white flour should be used within a
year of the time it's ground.
Unground grains are well protected by their husks, and can be stored for
centuries, which is why the survivalists and Y2K alarmists stocked up on
whole grains.
A final comment - there is a chain of bakeries, Great Harvest, that
advertises they grind their flour fresh daily, and that their bread is
better for it. I've been in a number of disucssions about grinding grain
into flour. And a number of people say fresh is best. However, others say
that if a flour hasn't been aged about 30 days, it's not fit to use. Which
is true? A good question. Further discussion suggests that when the flour
is freshly ground and still "wriggling with life", it's fine to
use. However, within a day or so, chemical changes make it harder to
use. And that continues until the flour has been aged. So, my feeling is
if you are going to grind your own flour, use it right away, or age it 30
days... in between could be problematical.
Mike
--
Mike Avery
MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com