To Freeze, Refrigerate, Or Store At Room Temp!

[swrdsrfg]

Hello! I just joined, so this is my first post. Hope I'm doing this correctly! I recently purchased some sweet rice flour, some tapioca starch, and some potato starch. I'm new to gluten free baking, so I'm not sure about proper storage: pantry, refrigerator, or freezer. Some brands of the special flours are marked for storage, but these came from an oriental market and are not marked. Can someone please help me with this? Thanks so much.

Frances in MS

[Lisa]

Hello! I just joined, so this is my first post. Hope I'm doing this correctly! I recently purchased some sweet rice flour, some tapioca starch, and some potato starch. I'm new to gluten free baking, so I'm not sure about proper storage: pantry, refrigerator, or freezer. Some brands of the special flours are marked for storage, but these came from an oriental market and are not marked. Can someone please help me with this? Thanks so much.

Frances in MS

Hello and welcome!

I'm not much of a baker so I can't offer the best advise. I do have some gluten free mixes that I keep in my pantry in a zip-lock container or a tight storeage container.

[Kaycee]

Welcome Frances.

Firstly I don't know much about storing flours, but from what I gather it can depend on where you live as in how hot or muggy it might be. In hot or muggy conditions they don't last as long in the cupboard.

I can't see a problem with storing them in the fridge let alone the freezer. It might just mean a couple of extra minutes cooking time. From what I gather they don't freeze solid. I buy a premixed flour, and it tends to keep all right in the cupboard, but I am going to get a bit adventurous and buy my separtate flours and work from there. I will definately be storing them in the fridge, or possibly the freezer.

You can always premix these flours and store them premixed, it will save with mixing them later. I guess the secret is not to buy too much at one time.

Hopefully someone else can answer these questions better than me.

Cathy

[Hanna GF LF cheerleader]

I make a big bucket of gluten free flour mix, then I stick it in the freezer until I need it. It doesnt seem to affect the flour! and I am new, too! well actually I lost my password and my email so this is kinda my first time!

[ArtGirl]

I did a quick Google search and found a site that had this information.

Buy flour in smaller amounts so that it is always fresh. If you buy large amounts of flour at one time, store it in the freezer.

Flours higher in fat should be stored in the fridge. Examples are amaranth, quinoa, full-fat soy and nut flours (rice bran and ground flaxseed).

Store flours in airtight containers instead of the original bags. Label flours and starches, as they are hard to tell apart by looking at them.

I store bean flours in the refigerator - learned this from a cookbook but don't now remember which one. I would expect that any cookbook that has recipes for breads and baked goods would have a chart about storage.

[Karen B.]

Gotta love the internet -- check out this site...

Flour Storage Guide

Open Original Shared Link

It lists all flours, not just gluten-free flours but it has details like

Amaranth Flour

Shelf- Life: up to 6 months in the freezer if properly stored in a sealed container or if tightly wrapped.

Other Considerations: will not keep well if it is stored in a warm location or if it is exposed to sunlight. The flavor and aroma of amaranth flour will become bitter if it is stored improperly or for an excessively long period.

[lpellegr]

Just for the record, I keep almost all my flours at room temp because I just don't have storage space in fridge or freezer, and I haven't noticed any problem. I store white/brown/sweet rice flours, garfava flour, potato starch flour, cornstarch, tapioca starch, cornmeal, and sorghum flour all at room temp. I keep soy flour (which I hardly use), almond meal, and flax meal in the fridge. I make mixes (Bette Hagman's original and four flour) and store them at room temp, and it all seems to work out fine. I buy 10 one pound bags of white rice flour and several of tapioca at the asian market at a time, since I don't get there too often, and just store them in a big Rubbermaid box. I do keep an eye out for food moths, since I think they would be more of a problem which would cause me to throw stuff out. In the last month I have made bread twice (for crumbs and croutons), blueberry muffins, corn muffins, etc and they were all fine - or as fine as gluten-free baked goods can be.

[Sweetfudge]

Brown rice flour goes rancid rather quickly so most sources say to keep it refrigerated. I don't use it much, but I keep it in the back of the fridge. Just keep the rest in a cool dry place. I also keep my Xanthan Gum in the freezer.