Bugs in the flour!!

[Jessie9323]

Has anyone had a recurring problem with bugs in your flour?!
I thought I had solved the problem, flour in a metal container inside a plastic bag, same with icing sugar etc. A deep clean after the last time I found them, bay leaves in the cupboard and it's meant to dissuade them.
I've just bloody found them in 2 unopened bags of flour (not in a container) so they must still be lurking. I'm at the end of my tether!!

How long are you keeping your flour for?

Also I would ditch the plastic bag, you're making a hot damp atmosphere.

Apparently freezing the flour after you buy it helps

The flour in the containers is fine, I use a lot as I do a lot of baking. It's the fact they are still somehow getting to the new bags that are just placed in the cupboard! I'll stick anything new in the freezer and see if that helps

@M0reGinPlease the bagged flour was purchased on Friday from Tesco!

I had this issue before, i just started keeping my flour in the freezer in a tub. Once they are there they get everywhere, we had to throw out everything in the cupboards, tea bags etc. As they had got everywhere.

Biscuit beetles. I have occasionally found these in flour that's been around for a while (I keep my flour in sealed containers, so I think it's plausible that their eggs are already in the flour, as a PP suggested). I would return the flour to Tesco if you have only just bought it.

I guess you have thrown it away, though, as the yuck factor is fairly high!

The eggs are in the flour. Freezing for a few days kills the eggs and they don’t hatch.

Unfortunately they are in there and they do hatch.

another vote for freezing flour. I freeze it for 48hrs just to be sure. No problems since.

I had no idea freezing flour was a thing. People seriously routinely freeze their flour?

We once found bugs in a bag of flour found at the back of my mum's pantry - we check to best before date, and it was 8 years out of date...

Do you think maybe Tesco has the bug issue, if the flour is only a few days old?
Our flour went into the freezer for 48hr in dodgy country.
Can you move the cupboards around? Plates or mugs into the current flour cupboard, and (rationalised, cleaned) flour and cereals into a cupboard that yasnt had weevils?? (we used to keep an empty cupboard in the old house so when the ants invaded cupboard, we could move everything.....I hated living there).

Yeah they hatch in the flour. I echo the freezing.

Yeah I've had this. What a weird world these bugs live in - dark, powdery, constrained. Nature never ceases to amaze me .

I keep mine in a plastic container in the fridge and have never had this problem since.

Another tip we found when dealing with it was to avoid keeping foodstuff in the upoer cupboard near the oven or under the kettle. The hot steam that these things cause can make a more hospitable environment for them.

So if you have (like we had...) The kettle under the dry goods cupboard then it might be worth rearranging to have plates or something there instead

Living abroad in developing countries I ALWAYS kept flour in the freezer. It doesn't freeze but it keeps the bugs away

I had this. They were everywhere. Nibbled the edges of lasagne sheets, lurking in the cereal, so now I freeze my flour.

Apparently the bug eggs are so tiny that they can survive the milling process. The eggs are originally laid in the grains, which are then milled. The only reliable treatment is freezing the flour - I seal the bag in a plastic bag, & freeze for 2 days. Then decant into a clean, airtight tub. Obviously if the treated flour gets exposed to the live bugs, it will get buggy very quickly. IME freezing it gives at least 6 months without bugs though.

When I had this problem I read that often the problem is the source, the place where the flour is packaged. I kept getting it with Aldi flour so I bought from elsewhere and it was fine. Your kitchen is probably perfectly clean and the bugs are in the flour anyway.

I did not know the eggs were in the flour. What fresh hell is this?!

Thank you everyone! All flour has gone into the freezer and then in sealed bags.

The cupboard isn't near the oven or kettle. We actually had it happen before we ripped the kitchen out and replaced all the cupboards so it must be in the flour itself. So frustrating!

I'd kept them at bay for ages then one ruddy bag of flour later and my lasagne box has bugs in 😂

Oh no.

I can no longer eat fish after reading on here that it has worms in (then googling...🙄), now I'm going to have to throw out the week old bag of flour in my cupboard and set fire to the kitchen...!!

Are they beetle-like critters or brown hairy maggots?