Comments on: how to wash out flour?

Question: how to wash out flour?

iloveit — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:15:03 -0800

How do I wash flour out of my towels?

What do I do with the towels I use for breadmaking? I have some flour sack towels that are covered in copious amounts of flour. Dough has stuck to some of them and dried into a hard mass. I'd like to wash them out and reuse them, but I'm worried about making a batch of wheat-paste in my washing machine. How do I wash these things without making a bigger mess than I started with?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:19:14 -0800

If you soak them for a while in warm water, the flour should soften up and turn into gross spongy bits that will wash off under the tap. You may have to put them under something heavy to keep them from floating to the top.

By: bitter-girl.com

bitter-girl.com — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:25:50 -0800

Personally, I'd soak them in a bucket (warm water) til the flour dissolves -- it usually settles to the bottom if you give it a little time -- and then dump the bucket-o-watery-flour out in your yard / the nearest storm drain. At this point they should be "clean" enough to run through the washer.

By: popcassady

popcassady — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:30:05 -0800

Fill your bath with cold water.

Agitate. Rinse. Drain. Repeat.

By: popcassady

popcassady — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:33:41 -0800

(...or so my gran says.)

By: jmnugent

jmnugent — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:47:26 -0800

You know what I would try.

stretch them out as flat as you can and then either let them dry ....OR... freeze them....

then just bend/flake it all off?...

course you dont say how many you have or how "clumped" together they are.

( I only say this because for the past week or so its been -10 every night and freezing them would be easy-peasy. ;)

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:26:44 -0800

Definitely soak them if you're worried about it. But realistically, a standard washing machine uses 40 gallons of water per load, so figure about 20 - 25 gallons for the wash cycle. That's a lot of liquid. The first hit for "wheat paste recipe" on google calls for a 16:3 water:flour ratio, so assuming 25 gallons of water that would be 75 cups of flour that you would need dissolved in your towels to approximate the consistency of glue. I don't think you have nearly that much flour dissolved in your towels. As long as you wash them alone and not part of a larger load I don't think you have anything to worry about.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:31:48 -0800

(and naturally if you have a water-saving washing machine you can roughly halve those figures, but that's still an awful lot of flour)

By: stefnet

stefnet — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:16:43 -0800

I've washed tea towels in that exact condition in my washing machine (which is a basic model) with absolutely no problems. No pre-soaking or anything.

By: cubby

cubby — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:51:36 -0800

for the ones with not so much dough stuck to them, put them on the floor and run a vaccum cleaner over them first. then wash normally.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:55:26 -0800

jmnugent's method worked fine for me. After trying that now-famous NYT no-knead bread recipe a couple of times, I just lay the towels on the porch and let them dry for a day, then beat them against the railing a few times to get most of the flour off, then into the washer. Worked like a charm.

By: Ariadne

Ariadne — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:35:14 -0800

Go outside and shake as much flour out of the towels as possible. A lot will come out. Pick off any big clumps. It hasn't seemed to matter much to me on the automatic wash cycle whether you wash with warm or cold. Skake! Shake! Shake!

By: tomble

tomble — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:27:26 -0800

Skake!

Hee hee.

Anyway, I have a similar issue with an apron which became covered in flour dough. I agitated it over the sink - crushed, folded, stretched etc to get the worst of it off, then soaked it and washed it. It was fine afterwards.

By: CAnneDC

CAnneDC — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:25:53 -0800

Wait, I know this one: you have to beat it out.

It's an old college 'prank' to "Antique" a room (I had never heard of it before I experienced it first hand): You pour flour all over a room. If you add water to it, it forms a nice paste. In order to wash everything and clean the flour out of all of your stuff, you cannot add more water because it forms a dough like substance and then eventually paste. So you have to literally beat the flour out.

Ah college.