Do you know what would be great? If you guys could sell a bag of bread flour that isn't full of bugs. Yep...that would be wonderful.



I make all of my own sandwich bread with home ground whole wheat, but every once in awhile I like a good white flour focaccia or baguette or Italian bread. For those, I use regular bread flour. In the past year or so, at least every other bag of Gold Medal flour that I've bought has been full of bugs and it's begun to piss me off. Nothing like planning a nice meal with fresh bread only to be disappointed yet again.

Never again will I give Gold Medal a dime. I'm done wasting money on their buggy flour. I guess it's time to start getting imported Italian flour for those breads. It's spendier, but much better quality than the garbage sold here.

That's just extra protein.

Gross. I realize such things will be present in all flour to some extent, but I sure as hell don’t want it to be enough that I can see it.

King Arthur flour is much better. Plus, I’ve never seen any extra protein.

Is this a thing in some parts of the country?

I’ve been baking for a very long time as both a home baker, and as a professional pastry chef and I literally have never ever seen anything in flour other than…flour.

Yes. Bugs are either not noticed or noticed, but they abound.
And it has a lot to do with temp, humidity and access for insects to become a problem. Eggs are almost always present, once conditions are right and they hatch, it's a party, and not the good kind.

Vacuum canisters.
That helps with bugs and oxidation and lower humidity.

Grind your own flour.
Greater control and earlier mitigation of pests.


Both will help with bugs.
You still may get infested flour, but putting it in a canister will help identify early on if you have a problem.

Putting flour or grains in the freezer in the vacuum canister for 72 hours or more will kill insects, larva and eggs.

Keeping the grain and flour vacuum sealed and cold prevents any hatching of any eggs that may remain, and you will never be rid of the possibility.

Other than the "mental/emotional" issues of "Ewww...." eggs ground up and baked are never going to be an actual health issue.

The Missus X monkey ground all our flour for everything, so, I got learned.

But if you absolutely must choose between two bugs, which would you select?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAwIN8J3RAE

Recognizing that the bags are sealed from Gold Medal, is it possible that the store from which you purchased the items has poor storage in their supply chain and bugs are entering the bag after Gold Medal delivers them?

"But if you absolutely must choose between two bugs, which would you select?"

Without looking I can honestly say, "The lessor of two weevils, of course!"

My wife cooks everything from scratch. she bakes bread at least once a week. She makes all our pasta. We use a lot of flour here at the farm. She buys 25# bags of Walmart Great Value flour and it gets stored in 5 gallon pails with Gamma Seal lids.

Never heard a peep about flour weevils or moths in the flour.

Now Ralstons hot cereal that I love? You have to put the pouches it comes in in the freezer and store them there. The open pouch gets stored in a glass jar after spending some time in the freezer. That's the only way I've found to not have bugs in it.

Flour beetles. I worked at Colonial bakery before college and we had to be meticulous with cleaning because the beetles would close the bakery down and cause tens of thousands of dollars in waist and talking 70's money.

King Arthur keeps them at bay with his lance.

You have to look at the label. Does it say smooth or crunchy?



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Now you know why your mom (grandmom?) had one of these in her kitchen.

^^^^^ Yep.

I do sift my fresh ground stuff (I think it makes a nicer loaf), but I never felt the need to sift store bought stuff. Aside from buying better quality organic stuff, I think I'll start tossing it into the freezer for a few days before vacuum sealing it up. That should do the trick.