What on earth happened to my cheese sauce?!

[feelingrobbed]

Pic is before cheese was added and is the second try - with a different pot.

I've made this sauce quite literally over 400 times in the last 4 years - DC's favourite food.

I was mixing and suddenly all these grey bit's appeared. All that was in the pot was: flour, milk and butter. Nothing else at all!!

I use gluten free flour same as I always do.

I have heard about little creatures being in flour sometimes but I've never experienced it.

Anyone have a clue what this could be? I didn't want to risk feeding it to DC so I gave up on both batches half way through

Something stuck to your pan before cooking? Possibly some burnt bits not removed during the last wash.

Did the butter and flour burn as you made the roux?

Could be flour mites. Sometimes found in old flour. Otherwise I'd have said nonstick lining coming away from pan but unlikely if you used a different pan the second time. Was your whisk completely clean? No mould or mildew trapped in the prongs, especially where the loops cross.

I've had a similar issue and it was grime accumulated in the handle of the whisk.

New pan, use a different whisk or wooden spoon and you can narrow it down.

I find it hard to believe that the OP would have accumulated that much dirt in a whisk and not noticed. It doesn't look like a non-stick pan - wondered as I've had trouble with the non-stick coming off, but that doesn't seem likely.
My guess would be mites - I think they can infest all sorts of flour.
Best case scenario: someone's ground a load of black pepper in...?

I've had this... It was the metal whisk against bottom of pan. Well, I assumed so!

Definitely not!

Used two pans same thing happened twice

Whisk is reasonably new and definitely wasn't dirty. Also I washed it in between attempts

Are they non stick pans? I had one that suddenly shed a load of flaky bits into my scrambled eggs a while back.

Neither pan was non stick, no one else had a chance to do anything as I have to stand there whisking it the whole time!!

I think it must be those mites. I'll have to sieve the bags and find out. One was a brand new bag!

Your whisk does look quite blackened in the picture. Maybe it's just the shot. Wooden spoon?

But I've used it so many times before!!! Argh!

Ah yes. It does. Will check it again as it didn't look like that before. Hopefully that's it!!

Ohh, I never thought about flour mites, just bunged the cheese and some black pepper in 🤣

Well good luck @feelingrobbed . Mine is usually for leeks in cheese sauce with a roast.. I figure if it tastes okay... What's the harm 🤔🤣

I wonder if bits of flour, get attached to whisk, burn then fall off.

I'm going to bed haha. This thread has just been my distraction.

I hope you manage to get it sorted!

Thanks @JanglingJack and everyone else!

I've checked and the whisk looks fine. Only had it about a month!

My guess is that they’re flour mites. Check the photos on google they do look very similar to what you have. Whisking the mixture has probably broken some up and others are whole which would account for the differing sized bits. Look closely at the bag of flour you can see them moving but you need to watch closely.

@Petrine crikey. I think I'll look in the morning, I'm all devastated about the mac & cheese flop. Not sure I can hack any more shocks before bed 🤣

If you have flour mites you will see them moving in the flour.