Okay. Where did the flour go?
 

I’m actually just as perplexed with the flour shortage.

Did the panic make everyone crave carbs in the form of home baked things? I typically use flour to make a roux. I don’t bake. However, I am hoping to use spring onions for a Chinese onion pancake. I only have bread flour. I’ll try it for sure. AP flour is nonexistent.

Everyone needing bread? Hmmm, a virus. Oh, I know homemade BISCUITS! Ironically, the bread shelves are fully stocked. Flour? Just dusty shelves. Everyone going full “little house on the prairie”? Sliced bread is no good?

Cindy reports "no yeast"...so, guess we'll try to make some sourdough starter?

Vash - I don't know why but it seems most of my friends and family are posting homemade breads.

pwd - beer bread doesn't use yeast. My wife made a batch a few weeks ago before she found yeast, it was pretty good.

Aww crap. My onion pancake needs instant yeast.

over here a lot of people are either bored home, locked down, and now baking loads of bread and cakes.

or worried bout fresh bread because they think the fresh bakery will at some point touch the bread with his hands and then that causes corona infection...
Same reason why all the premade bakeoff at home bread was sold out along with the TP for quite some time (supplies on everything have now caught up here)

They’re hoarding. I’ll bet most of it sits in pantries until the bugs eat it. Same with yeast. The only place to get bread flour around here is the GB market. They only sell flour in 25 lb bags. Yeast goes by the pound.
Ironically the bread shelves are full of ready to eat bread.

Spring Onions, green garlic and ramps are usually found in farmers markets but this year is different- almost impossible to find. With the hoarding of beans, pasta and flour, I hope the food shelters will have plenty of these items come Christmas time.

A bit of irony here...with all of this baking going on more folks will end up being obese, knowing that this (obesity) factor presents as a major statistical risk of facing more serious consequences from covid.

Yep... and yep... It's been the same here for the last 6 weeks or more. Flour and Yeast are almost as hard to come by as TP, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant sprays.

Mom made sourdough starter, has some beer bread recipes I believe too.

Have seen flour again, and there is rice, but still no yeast

FB II has been baking bread for the usual reason but he told me that the fragrance of the bread has helped keep FBIII from torturing everyone in the house! ;)

It's going to get worse.

https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/food-supply-chain-breaking-tyson-foods-chairman-claims-plant-coronavirus-closures

I just have to wonder did several of folks go buy huge amounts of flower and yeast, or is it suddenly millions of people buy it that had never bought it before.

When the panic buying started, it was like they had announced a hurricane. No milk or bread. Water in short supply (water?). And the Toilet paper, etc.

With the bread all gone, people bought flour to make their own. I guess they did not know they needed yeast, because there were plenty of jars of yeast.

The only flour left was the high dollar stuff (Gold Medal). I pulled out my old (28.5 years!) bread maker and made some. And it was better than the store bought cake (batter) "bread". So we are no longer buying bread. I run a load every few days. And with the store brand flour back in the store, The bread is about 1/4 the cost of store bought stuff. And no real work with the bread maker.

I expect people have figured this out. Better bread, less money. Things "might" return to normal when this is over. Maybe.

Next stop: home made flour tortillas! Anyone have a good recipe?

My wife is always baking something, making some fancy dessert, etc. She has been complaining for several years about the ever-shrinking baking section of supermarkets. In pre-covid times home baking has been on the decline for a long time. Even the cake mixes are smaller and fewer on the shelves. So now, there is lots of interest in baking and bread making. No baking stuff to be had. Empty shelves. No parchment paper even. She's been trying to get a bag of light brown domino sugar for fudge, she swears it's the only brand that doesn't get all granular. Down to 2 packs of out of date yeast. Missed that one coming!

I ran out of Rapid Rise yeast for my pizza dough so am having to use the regular which I still have about 6 packs of. I proof it a while to get it going good before adding it to the flour. Makes for a thicker fluffy crust than I am used to. I should run out of flour, both whole wheat and white that I mix 50/50, about the time I run out of yeast. Then I will just take a brush and a zip lock bag to the grocery store to collect all the spilled flour off the empty shelves. :D

What's wrong with this thread?

Nothing...you fixed it :)

^^^ Do I get a prize...maybe some bread?

No dough....

No yeast, no problem...

Yeast is in the air all around us, its on the milled flour ( if you can get any)

Harvest your own.. make sourdough starter, granted a sourdough starter wont play nice with desserts or pastries (most)..but you can make an awesome pizza dough... just make a high hydration/long ferment dough...

A bonus is that every geographical areas sourdough have slightly different tastes..

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This, I know its the case here on Lawn Guyland that many people who never bake were buying flour,yeast, etc.. The homesteader/self sufficiency ethic is small here..mostly...

I've been baking, curing meats, brewing ( i'm learning how to make cheese) for many years because it is therapeutic to me..and my friends and family benefit....

I recently made some pepperoni with Venison my friend harvested, and pork from a small hippy back the the earth farm near my place in Vermont..

Hormel=no way..

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It has been tough buying bread at the store, or so I hear. We only do home delivery.

People bake at home. I ordered a couple big bags (one white, one whole wheat) at a bakery supply store and am done chasing after 5 lb bags online for a while. We have always baked bread once a week, but with more hungry mouths at home to feed it is 2-3 times a week now and you can add sweet breads, cakes, pancakes etc. to it. So, usage rate is definitely up and there won't be any bugs eating our supplies, for sure.

I don't think everyone will be obese as a result of baking at home. Will people ad half a cup of sugar to their bread dough? Because that's what you'll find in your average store bought crap.

That Tyson announcement is self serving. There is no food supply issue if the company acts responsibly. All these huge plants pay very little, so everyone bunks at home and they cram them in the line without making any adjustments for COVID. And frankly, if there is no puss chicken for sale, I could care less ...

G

Costco & SAMS are not taking back toilet paper, sanitizer, rice or flour that people bought in the panic.

in answer to the OP, "where did all the flour go?"

... has no one else noticed that stress baking is common in women?

Food supply thing could turn into a big deal.

Pigs for example, can only be so big before they can't be processed in the regular way. When they are ready for slaughter, they need to be processed to make room for the next round of livestock growing up. There is going to be a massive amount of meat wasted if the meat packing plants stay closed very long. It happened during the great depression, which was a ripple compared to the economic tsunami brewing now

I agree that we are not out of the woods on food supply chain. Especially on highly perishable items like meat and fruits / vegetables. Will we run out of flour, rice, beans etc.? Probably not, and even if the supply chain there would break down, there is a way to getting the bare necessities out to people. Of course, what is challenging nowadays is that many people don't even know how to cook from scratch.

You also can't shortcut the supply chain. If I wanted pork, I couldn't just go pick up a live hog at the rancher, even though I would know what to do with a live hog ... The ranches that serve my area are probably thousands of miles away.

I still don't like the Tyson statement, it deals with their problem only but it will cause another run on grocery stores. I bet you money, chicken is sold out as we speak.

G

Tyson foods...friend of the Clintons. Is it any surprise they manipulate the public?

There is that..whenever a big storm threatens, Cindy heads for the kitchen.

That said, she's always been baking something or other. So, the newcomers messing things up for the people who always baked. I agree with the earlier post...lots of soon to be expired yeast being stockpiled throughout the country.

you know there are a lot of worse behaviors in response to stress...