though home methods of making the raw flour edible is often inconsistent in terms of how safe it makes the flour, the best practice is to buy cookie dough made to be edible raw, rather than rely on your half-baked attempt at making raw flour edible 😅 (source)
While some recipes suggest DIY methods to “heat-treat” flour at home, such as baking it in the oven or microwaving it, these methods are inconsistent and may not effectively eliminate all pathogens, including Salmonella, which is particularly heat-resistant in low-moisture foods like flour.
To pasteurize wheat flour (e.g., in 5-lb bags) with different moisture contents (e.g., 11.6 percent and 14.5 percent) using an RF
heating process (volumetric heating), the holding time required at a specific target temperature can be predicted by measuring or
calculating the high-temperature water activities of the flour samples, and then determining their corresponding D-values for
Salmonella. In this case, calculations indicate that the water activities at room temperature for the two batches of flour are 0.43 and 0.64, which would increase to 0.69 and 0.82, respectively, at 80°C. According to the equation shown in Figure 4, the D80 values of Salmonella at these water activity levels are 3.2 and 1.2 minutes, respectively. To achieve a 5-log reduction, the two flour batches must be held at 80 °C for 16 and 6 minutes, respectively.
I think the issue here is not that you can’t pasteurize flour yourself, but that many DIY tutorials are dangerous and they should be regulated.
Also it takes a very long time to heat raw flour and it hardly seems worth the effort. Just make oat flour from rolled oats. You’re eating the dough raw, so what do you need egg or gluten for in the first place?
Yeah, I think if the average person reads that they can heat treat the flour to make it safe, that it will lead some (most?) to then ineffectually heat treat the flour and then assume it’s no longer a risk.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense for most people to pasteurize the flour themselves 😅
though home methods of making the raw flour edible is often inconsistent in terms of how safe it makes the flour, the best practice is to buy cookie dough made to be edible raw, rather than rely on your half-baked attempt at making raw flour edible 😅 (source)
https://wpcdn.web.wsu.edu/wp-labs/uploads/sites/1254/2024/01/FSM-Developing-Thermal-Control-of-Salmonella-in-Low-Moisture-Foods-Using-Predictive-Models-Clean-PDF-Version.pdf
I think the issue here is not that you can’t pasteurize flour yourself, but that many DIY tutorials are dangerous and they should be regulated.
Also it takes a very long time to heat raw flour and it hardly seems worth the effort. Just make oat flour from rolled oats. You’re eating the dough raw, so what do you need egg or gluten for in the first place?
Yeah, I think if the average person reads that they can heat treat the flour to make it safe, that it will lead some (most?) to then ineffectually heat treat the flour and then assume it’s no longer a risk.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense for most people to pasteurize the flour themselves 😅