November 21, 2019 - 7:54pm
Can you carry flour on a plane?
I’m flying to the UK, I have a lot of flours and a couple starters to take with me, can I carry them abroad? I was worried that the security might think they were drugs
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I’m flying to the UK, I have a lot of flours and a couple starters to take with me, can I carry them abroad? I was worried that the security might think they were drugs
I would not chance it on carryon for the flour. I carry dried samples of starter all the time. Use the search box "drying starter". It's very easy and works well. I have also carried small smears in cosmetic jars and in ziplock bags (the decreased pressure makes them ooze out so the ziploc contains the mess. But these were domestic flights in the US.
As for flour, my husband had a small sealed, commercially packaged bag of brand name grits in his carryon. It tested positive for explosive rsidue so they confiscated it. Sad.
Can you carry hydrated starter with you?
Can you carry hydrated starter with you?
As Clazar said, it is possible to carry hydrated starter. But I suspect the TSA will consider it a liquid so it will have to be a small enough volume—100 ml per container—with enough headspace in the container for expansion, because it will expand (Murphy’s Law) and ooze out. It needs to be in the quart-sized plastic bag along with your other liquids if you are putting it in your carryon. If you put it in checked baggage, guaranteed it will ooze out due to the fluctuating air pressure. Leave plenty of headspace in the container and double-bag it, squeezing out as much air as possible before sealing the bags, to avoid the inside of your suitcase being decorated with starter.
If you want the word from the experts themselves, post a picture of your item to ‘AskTSA’ on Twitter or Facebook.
For those of us who are not traveling, those sites can be a source of entertainment...for example, can you take a mounted elk head in your checked baggage?
i have carried dried starter on overseas flights, but having a well-developed sense of paranoia (and some ridiculous experiences with TSA everywhere), I put it in an empty yeast packet or an empty yeast jar. It’s flakes, so it doesn't look like typical drugs, but that enabled me to say ‘it is was it says on the label’ truthfully.
i haven’t had a problem but I did put it in my checked bag.
My son brought me German flour a few years ago, again in the checked baggage. No problem.
Now that used tissue in my jeans pocket that shut the line at Heathrow? Or the bag of Starbucks beans that was fine in Ft. Myers but not in Ft. Lauderdale? Don’t get me started...
I have flour from Germany in my checked bag every time I fly back from Hamburg (flour types I can’t get here, like light spelt or light kamut).
And I took some there, to give it to German baking buddies, like white whole wheat and white buckwheat that they can’t buy there. I had never any problems.
One day I had the brilliant idea to buy some organic flour in the US to take back to my country. It was fun to cross the international security check in Chicago. The problem is that I took the flour as carry on since my check in bag was completely full. It took some extra time to explain what it was and for TSA to analyze samples from each bag. Luckily I had enough time.