cornflour (and flour) shelf life

This reminds me of an occasion just last year when I decided to get out the kitchen steps and tackle an upper cupboard! All the dried fruit, nuts etc are in boxes as well as their original bags, they were all ok. But there was also another box, about the size of a bag of flour, with some brown rice in it. It was sealed and the bag was too, thankfully! The rice was crawling will little mites 😱😱 ! It quite gave me the heeby geebies! Went straight into the bin…….but I did salvage the box which was used again after a thorough delousing!!

I keep mine in the freezer, if there’s room, and always freeze it for a couple of days even if I then transfer it to the cupboard. I’ve only seen weevils once ever, they’re harmless and killed by cooking anyway. I’m never bothered about the BBE dates on flour and have recently ly finished cornflour with a BBE of 06/2024, it made perfectly nice shortbread.

I buy flour several bags at a time from the mill and was advised by a miller to keep them in the freezer. I transfer one or two to the fridge when I'm getting near to needing to use them. They keep pretty well.

When I moved last year I threw out a little pot of ground ginger that cost 9d.

Yes, you read it right.

nanna8

I’ve found weevils in old unopened packets of flour so now I reckon anything more than a year old out it goes. The flour in question was kept at a holiday house, probably a couple of years old. Horrible little things that must have been there all the time unhatched.

Used to get those in so many things when living in a v hot climate in the M East. We had to first put flour in the freezer, and then sieve the mini corpses out.

Weetabix were known among expats as Weevilbrix!

TBH it wouldn’t even occur to me to chuck it.

During the first lockdown I used a number of dry-goods items (pretty ancient GF flour was just one) that were all way out of date, in some cases by several years - yellow split peas was another I can recall.
All were absolutely fine.

Never had any problems with cornflour though, even though I bought a packet too many some time back and it doesn't get used up too quickly as you only need a spoonful at a time. I keep it in a Kilner jar with a rubber seal.

I keep forgetting to use it when baking cakes or biscuits. You can replace some of the normal flour with cornflour for a lighter texture.

Flour is made from wheat or other grains which contain oils which can go rancid. This would be when they smell off. If kept in a cool dry place this shouldn't happen though and I have never had it happen. I do get a lot of meal moths, though, but these are mainly in oats and coarser wheat products such as semolina or polenta.

thanks for the responses,

nanna8, me too, at the bottom of a cupboard actually
on a stone floor, the bag was a jumpin’ in the home of
someone very famous where I was working, advised to
sieve it and say nothing !

I’ve found weevils in old unopened packets of flour so now I reckon anything more than a year old out it goes. The flour in question was kept at a holiday house, probably a couple of years old. Horrible little things that must have been there all the time unhatched.

Just checked, my tin of Tesco cornflour is Nov 2017!

I don’t use it very often, as you can probably tell.

Looks and smells absolutely fine, I shall keep using it on the rare occasions when I need cornflour.

Regular flour can go "off" in my experience. I smell it to check! There's a normal "floury" smell and the off smell, which comes through in anything baked with it. It wouldn't harm you, but the products end up being given to birds.
Cornflour, is actually corn starch, and doesn't go off in the same way, as it has no protein or other ingredients that can degrade.
I would keep cornflour for years, but try to use flour within about 6 months- but use smell test!

It's an absolute baby at a year and a half

I have never seen a weevil in any sort of flour in my entire life and I sometimes have bags for much more than a year It doesn't degrade either. Your flours are perfectly safe.

The dates are a legal requirement and for dried goods they're more likely to be based on guesswork than any food science.