How do you clean a flour sifter?

Leaving flour on it will attract flour moths that turn into maggots. Run in dishwasher. Or wash in hot, soapy water as you would any other dirty baking utensil. Just use extra zeal or elbow grease.

Water.

I wash it in my dishwasher. I would never put it away dirty.

I agree wash it in hot water or the dishwasher if you have one.

Don’t clean it. Usually there’s very little flour left in it and if you bag it a little, you can get rid of most of that. Then it’s clear without putting water on it. I wouldn’t put water on it, especially if it is older, like the one I have. It is rusting and I don’t want it to rust any faster than it is. I think putting water on a flour sifter is a really bad idea, and I wouldn’t do it unless I absolutely had to.

@gailcalled Moths produce eggs, which become larvae when they hatch.

I guess it depends on where you live. I learned the hard way in NZ that I had to be very careful about my dried goods, like rice, beans and flour or I would get infestations of mothra http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BUayf1Tkl6U/UKsNyymvRrI/AAAAAAAAATc/EVYTk4YGSw0/s1600/Mothra_S.O.S.jpg and her babies. Here in Norway, I do not have a problem like that.

My mother always told me to not wash it, though and to keep it in a bag. When finished using it, to bang it hard over the sink to remove any flour hanging on. They are often made out of material that will rust, anyway.

Since the interested bugs are not an issue where I live, I usually bang the flour out as best I can, and put it away. I don’t have a dishwasher; the alternative is a rusty sifter. No thanks.

I wash it by hand and make sure it dries right away. It would rust if water was left on it.

Bang it and then use a high powered hair dryer. If still not happy with the results clean your sink throughly and wash swishing a lot. If you really are determined scrub with small swabs.

The only reason you should obsessivly do this is because you are switching from gluten flour to non gluten flour. In which case you probably should just buy a new flour sifter. Unless overly fond of said flour sifter. In which case see top paragraph.

@YARNLADY But my question is… how the heck do you get water out of a sifter? This is still my question after having tried several times to wash and dry it. I mean, you can shake it as hard as you want, and sop up what you can with a towel, but it’s always going to hang on to a fair bit of water, no matter what you do.

@glacial blow dryer! Also sold for frozen locks and ice on windows… be careful not to crack the window with the quick temperature change. Oh and making sure the plastic on windows is wrinkle bubble free.

@glacial I have a spray attachment on my sink, and the spray feature works on sifters and colanders.

Things rust easily where I live. So after I’m done with my baking pans/sheets I put them in a hot/warm oven for a few minutes to make sure they dry out thoroughly. I used to put my old metal sifter in the oven as well, but now I have a sifter that has a plastic handle and a plastic thingy inside too so I just bang the flour out and keep it in a bag. Another tip to really shake off all the flour is to use a dry pastry brush.

I am originally from the Midwest and my mother never washed hers (worries about rust) and so I’ve never washed mine either. Never had a problem in Northern or Southern California with any kind of bugs, guess it depends where you live.