Ammonia smell in flour?
An odd question: The large plastic-ware container that I use for storing unbleached AP flour holds about 6 pounds of flour. I empty it completely and run it through the dishwasher twice a year or so, so I'm always fairly certain that there's no flour in it more than six months old. And I've stored the same bin in the same place for the last ten years, so no new variables have been introduced in storage.
This week as I was doing some baking, I noticed that the flour in the container smelled of -- well, sort of like ammonia. Wierd. I was getting down toward the bottom of the bin, so this was probably some of the older stuff -- but I've never had this happen before. I dumped the flour out and am washing the bin out tomorrow -- but does anyone have any ideas about how or why this might have happened? No clear source of contamination, all the flour was dry and free-flowing when I dumped it. I'd love to know what might have caused this.