[Preparedness] How long can you keep bread flour for?

julianj

I make my own bread using a Panasonic SD253 bread machine (it's dead good!)

This is economical (costs £0.40 per 400g loaf inc electricity) for top quality lovely fresh bread.

It is clear to me that with the prices of wheat skyrocketing bread flour will be going up in price soon - should I stockpile it? How long will it last? Is there anything I can do to extend the usability?

Note: I bought 1.5KG of strong wholemeal bread flour this morning - it has a "use by" date of Feb 2008.

Thanks for your assistance.

Julian

Fishman

Whole wheat flour lasts much shorter duration compared to white flour due to oxidation of the oils. Your better bet is to get a mill to grind wheat. Unground wheat can last years.

Pretorian

and its cheaper to buy too. btw, did you include labor costs in those 40 p?

cynthia · Heavy Crude Joined: May 29, 2005 Posts: 360

Freezing flour lengthens its shelf life.
cynthia

pstarr

Flour is simple carbohydrate--carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen--and should last forever if kept dry and cool. wheat berries are even better as they have a protective sheaf.

Wheat berries are alive and contain valuable nutrients like wheat germ, wheat oil etc. All you need to make flour is either a Vita-Mix brand blender (the old name?) or an inexpensive hand-crank metal burr mill to make whole wheat flour.
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SinisterBlueCat · Intermediate Crude Joined: Sep 06, 2005 Posts: 950

buy it in bulk--check out the price!

http://survivalacres.com/cgi-bin/quikstore.cgi?template=menu&search=yes&keywords=Flour

and it lasts forever!

jlw61

cynthia · Heavy Crude Joined: May 29, 2005 Posts: 360

I can detect rancidity a mile a way. If you were storing white flour, then 12-14 months is not usually a problem. Whole wheat would not likely have that kind of shelf life.
Also, I am a bread machine snob. But if the machine brings you closer to homemade then let that be a transition to full, hands-on bread making. There is nothing like it. Go to the Planning for the Future forum and find the bread thread.
cynthia

SILENTTODD

Wheat and flour are nice luxuries if you're set up for them and believe you'll have future access to them.

But you also have to store all the other things to make bread and noodles: yeast, butter, eggs, salt. Some of these will be easier to acquire and store than others. But just baked flour and water can get old real quick.

I myself am learning all I can about raising and storing varieties of Potatoes. They can be grown in almost every region of temperate climate, come in a large number of varieties, and are easily cooked or eaten raw.

They are easily grown, are full of vitamins and nutrition. And is probably the most food productive crop there is for a small amount of land.
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julianj

Excellent replies, thank you very much - this is why I love PO.com!

@pretorian: that's the major benefit of a bread machine - it's sooo easy - tip the ingredients in and press a few buttons - a couple of minutes for straightforward breads, and maybe ten at most for more elaborate recipes: the labour costs are negligible.

SILENTTODD

julianj

Thanks for your reply SILENTTODD. I forgot about oil/butter as an ingredient, but what I said still stands.

I'm not as pessimistic as you.

I find it very hard to believe that the UK's combined electricity and gas supply would fail so badly that I couldn't bake bread by one method or another as long as I had the right ingredients.

You also hardly need any sugar, so it would be easy to stockpile, and honey is a substitute (I've made Roman Army bread with spelt flour, honey and olive oil - solid but tasty).

If the lecky and gas do fail, then there are solar panels, camping gas cookers, solar ovens, and I saw someone at Brixton Green Fair recently build a wood-fired oven out of straw, bricks and cook a pizza in it, so I'm not particularly worried.

dsula · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 13, 2007 Posts: 140

Ludi

Here's a link to "how to" on culturing yeast for sourdough bread:

http://wildschwein.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/make-your-own-sourdough-culture-and-bread/

wisconsin_cur · Moderator Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 2999

We have 700+ pounds of wheat berries to serve as a "bridge" in case of a sudden change in paradigm. We have a couple of goats and chickens for eggs. I think you could store a large amount of oil in addition to your flower.

I would second Ludi's call to make your own sourdough. Would we get a little tired of sourdough after a few months? yes, but it would be better than doing with out and we are "putting by" enough other kind of supplies that not adding "yeast" to that list would be a great benefit.

We also have potatoes (3-4 varietes) but since I am not currently able to grow enough to last a whole year I plant enough each year so the following season we could have enough to last a whole year and still be able to plant the year after that,
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Nature is complete because it does not serve itself.

The sage places himself after and finds himself before,
Ignores his desire and finds himself content.

He is complete because he does not serve himself. -Lao Tze