Weevils in rice?

[Deleted]

We have two huge 20 lb. bags of basmati rice. One of them had weevils in it so I put it off and kept the other one farther away. Well the other one has them too as of this week so it's time to deal with them lol. From what I've read people say to either freeze it or get rid of it. I'm pretty particular about hygiene and not feeding my family anything that's compromised, but I swear when growing up my mother used to lay them all out on a large tarp/paper and dry them in the sun and the rice was just fine. Of course that was in Arabic countries where the sun was scorching 115 degrees+ hot so nothing could survive that (except those massive awful roaches ugh). So I don't want to toss these since I have experience with salvaging them. I don't have an area to dry them, our apartment doesn't get enough sunlight, and its around 50 degrees here weather-wise these days. The bags are too big to freeze. Before I try freezing in batches, does anyone have a way to mass eradicate them in an environmentally friendly way? I have flour in it's store-bought paper bag not too far and that's been fine for ages, so do I have a weirdly rice-addicted weevil that traveled a long distance to get to the other huge bag of rice but left the flour alone? From what I've seen online there's only grain weevils as in ones that like all grain, not just rice preferring ones like I have.

[manygoatsnmore]

Can you put the rice in the oven and let it sit on the very lowest setting for a while?

[Deleted]

Sorry for what you probably consider to be obvious, but would I put the whole bags in there? One is the brown cloth (??) type bag, the other is a while plastic (type) bag. Even on the lowest setting (just checked our lowest is 150 degrees) would that be safe? Or did you perhaps mean to pour it out in batches onto an oven tray and then do that? For how long would you suggest this? One day, over night? I can definitely trial and error it if you don't have an exact time to suggest

[manygoatsnmore]

I wouldn't do it in the bags, no - especially not the plastic one. Poured out into a roaster pan, you could easily do 5-10 lbs at a time.

[Deleted]

Okay I'll try that. It's not a plastic bag per se just is plastic-ish as in the name of the material I didn't know so I wasn't sure if those were oven-safe. I'll try over night. So my goal is to kill the weevils doing this? When I try to find how long, I should keep checking to see if they're dead and once they are, that's the cut off point I would assume. There shouldn't be eggs or anything I would have to worry about right?

[manygoatsnmore]

I'd leave them overnight - there may be eggs and although I'd assume that the same temp that would kill the adults would also kill the eggs, better to err on the side of caution.

[Deleted]

Alright I will try that and report back on my findings

[Skandi]

After you have killed them off store the rice either in the freezer or in airtight containers, or they will just be back. Those critters are almost impossible to eradicate once they're in the house.

[Deleted]

Oh wow I would have just put them back in the bag (not mixing them with the other rice of course). I noticed Jackie clay uses big garbage things with a bag inside for grains or those plastic buckets. Is there anything else you all use for mass storage of dry goods, say 40 pounds worth of rice for instance?

[jassytoo]

We use food grade 5 gal buckets for bulk storage of grains. Gamma lids are also a good idea although I also have some reg lids. I freeze all grains for a week in my freezer in the original bag. If you don't have room for that freeze it in smaller amounts. Keep it out of your pantry until it's been frozen, that way you won't get bugs going into other stuff in there.

[NJ Rich]

I freeze all my flour and rice for about two weeks. I double bag the flour that is still in the bags I bought it in.   Put it in zip type bags with bay leaves. I remove the flour from the freezer and let it thaw for a few days without taking it out of the zip bags. I look for any sign of moisture in the bag. I then put the still bagged flour in food grade buckets.

I also freeze the rice for two weeks in the plastic bags it comes in. I also let that thaw and look for any signs of moisture. Then I put the rice in 3 liter food grade juice bottles with tight lids. When the canning jars go on sale I will buy some and put the next batch of rice in sterilized jars.

So far I have not had problems with the flour or the rice. We have used flour over two years old without and lack of flavor or the baked foods. The pancakes, pie crust and cookies were fine.

Some people recommend re-freezing some items again after a period of time. What time I do not know and haven't done that.

BTW: I freeze zip bagged pasta the same way and put bay leaves in with it. @rachelmcmurtrie ,manygoatsnmore ,Skandi ,jassytoo ,

[Bear Foot Farm]

We always put large bags of rice or flour in the freezer for a few days. Generally that's enough to kill any bugs or eggs.

If you're still worried about it, before cooking a batch put it in a large bowl of heavily salted water, and any bugs or debris will float to the surface.

Cooking will kill any germs, so the rice is still edible

[motdaugrnds]

Floating the weevils is what I would suggest too. (I dislike the idea of eating those even if they are dead.)

[snoozy]

Btw, if anyone tells you that diatomaceous earth kills them, I can tell you they lie like a rug. Don't fall for it.

[Deleted]

That's actually what we've been doing since the other methods kill them but leave them in the rice and we want them out I've been washing the rice. It takes a good while with basmati rice to get the starch out anyways. Took about 5-6 rinses before, now it takes about 10 to get the starch and bugs out. But yes that is the best method I have found, with enough swirling, rinsing, washing and repeating we have been enjoying weevil-free cooked rice for a few weeks now, thank you