Evil weevils

Stephen_Leak

As above, they're flour weevils. You did nothing wrong. Sealing the bag stopped them getting out, not in. They were in the flour as eggs when you bought it.

Physically removing the weevils is all you really need to do. In the third world, the people do this when cooking the rice. The heat from below obviously makes the weevils move upwards, and they can then just be scooped off the top. The rice is then cooked as normal. The people there don't have the luxury of being able to throw it away.

There are probably some on this forum that would regard them as free extra protein!

As above, for the future, when buying flour in bulk, put it in the freezer for a while. The extreme cold kills the eggs.

tori.k

I wouldn't worry I lost a whole stockpile earlier this year when I had a leak someone left a bag of rice out of the box i keep in while we were away and the !!!!!!s managed to get into just about everything so i gave up and chucked the lot, keep an eye because i was a few day's to hunt all the blighters down as the hide in the joins around the cupboards

HeadAboveWater

Yuck indeed! Seen this thread and I'm about to heave.....


....and when I go home I'll be checking everything straight away....

:eek:

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the advice everyone :T

So my New Plan is going to be ...

Current flour cupboard washed out thoroughly, left empty and monitored for a while to make sure the little b*****s aren't just hiding ...

Every time I buy a new bag of flour - straight into the freezer for 4 days.

Then to be stored in individual well sealed containers (anyone any recommendations ?)

Store rice, grains, etc separately.

And from now on, EVERY time I go to use flour I will CHECK it carefully (yuck, yuck , yuck!)

shellsuit

I opened a new bag of flour once and found them in the top of it so binned it.

I'll be sure to freeze it in future though, thanks!

pixiedust09

This happened to me the other week. Bleached cupboard, but now I'm paranoid about them hiding in cracks and crevices. Love the idea about putting the flour in the freezer, will be doing this for definate.

Justamum

One time when I was living in Africa I found my bag of rice was crawling :eek: so I just binned it.

Another time I got a bag of yellow split peas from my cupboard, and that was crawling too. I'd only bought it a few days before and hadn't even opened it. When I went back to the shop to get a replacement I noticed that every packet on the shelves was also crawling :eek::eek:

I've not had any problems living back in Britain though, but I wish I hadn't read this thread now - I do a lot of baking and the thought of the eggs already in the flour makes me feel a bit _pale_

[Deleted User]

I had them in barley grains once and saw them when rinsing. They came up to the top, so I rinsed and rinsed and cooked the barley. The ones I had in flour were more difficult, I had them 8 years ago and since then I put every batch of flour into its own lock and lock airtight box. I often get a bulk order from shiptons and they are always clean but I am taking no chances. I never mix flours in the boxes and always give a good hot wash when emptied

FairyPrincessk

I don't have any specific airtight container suggestions. I still store my flour in the freezer--not because of this, but because it happens to be the best way for me to use the space in my kitchen at the moment. I also think it might be why people like my scones, warm butter+cold flour;) I think some people have problems with the flour going lumpy or damp this way, but I've never had an issue, and as I use a variety of different flours, some of them are in there for awhile.

Just a thought in case anyone has freezer space to spare--although I suspect my OS don't.:rotfl:

Justamum

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

Just a thought in case anyone has freezer space to spare--although I suspect my OS don't.:rotfl:

I think I might have to start doing this. We bought an upright freezer a few months ago because I was getting seriously hacked off with the chest freezer. We've still got the chest freezer though and I put bread in it. There's still loads of space, but not much space in the cupboard where I store the flour, so it's probably an obvious place to put it!