long term food storage

[Ranger99]

well. . . i don't know if i did it wrong ,
or if it just doesn't work. i had 30 lbs. of
dried beans stored away that i had
put in a food-grade bucket and used
the dry-ice method to "chase " out the
oxygen as advocated by the experts.
didn't last 2 years and they're spoiled
and mildewed. same amount of rice
too.
anyone else tried this or some other
method, or had great successes or
terrible failures?

[bilmac]

My guess is you got some condensation moisture. Thanks for the heads up, being somewhat of a cheapskate that was what I was going to do. The new recommended way is to pack your stuff in a mylar bag, put in the right amount of oxygen adsorbers then seal the bag. Then put the bag in the bucket. I suppose you can find the materials on the net by searching for food storeage. The materials to do this are a bit costly, but I guess I wouldn't want to open a bucket of food that I really needed and find it spoiled.

[nailbanger]

You call buy these on Amazon.

[Bugflipper]

I glue a desiccant to the lid. You can get food grade ones cheap on Ebay. They will soak up a little excess moisture. Sorry, I can't help with what went wrong. I don't use the dry ice method.

[Ranger99]

if i ever get enough cash again to
buy 60 lbs. of food to store , i'm
going to try the nitrogen route.


i had also wondered after reading
the vacuum sealer posts a while
back if anyone had put away the
same kinds of things ( dry beans-
rice-etc.) in vacuum sealed bags
and if the items had endured storage
and were still usable?


i do know temperature extremes and
moisture and light are the enemies of
stored food. i've read so many times in
so many different places of using the
dry ice/ oxygen displacement method
of storing grains and such but had never
tried it. i can say that it doesn't work
in my area. maybe in an area of low humidity?

[Bugflipper]

I always have CO2 on hand for welding so I just use that. I put a check valve on the container and vacuum the air out after. Most of the time I just put away in smaller containers like ammo cans and food storage buckets. But I do store seed corn in 50 gallon drums for the next year.
For the 1 way valve you can buy electric vacuum pumps, some of those vacuum bag sealers also have a hose port, you can buy a manual pump or you may be able to unhook a vacuum line from your car. I don't know if it will throw a code on all these new cars or not. I have unplugged my brake vacuum line that feeds into the intake on a 2007 model to poor tranny fluid in it for carbon removal and it didn't throw a code but all cars aren't the same. I just use old scouts as vacuum pumps.

[bilmac]

Kinda big pump flipper

[blind ear]

If you have a grain elevator near you , you could carry a sample and have the moisture level tested. It would give you an idea of what you are working with moisture wise. I dried rice and soybeans and stored them in 8000 bushel bins for many years and condensation never spoiled but small, very small, spots of grain on the inner surface of the uninsulated walls. Most spoilage was due to some type of rain leak. Most beans and rice have to be below 13% moisture content to store long term. You still have to worry about weevils at that low moisture. ear

[bilmac]

You can test for moisture by putting a small sample in an open container and weighing the sample on your powder scale. Then you keep the sample with the rest of the grain. Reweigh periodically and you will see the sample getting lighter as it dries. When it stops loosing weight it is dry.
 
I use silica gel to keep small quantities dry. I save seed and keeping it dry is probably the most important component of successful storeage. Hobby shops sell silica gel in 5# bags to people who dry flowers. Some of the beads are are colored and change color when they have absorbed all the moisture they can. You can redry the jel and reuse it. I drill lots of holes in plastic pill bottles and put the gel in them and put the bottles in whatever I am storeing. Seems to work because most of my seeds are viable when I plant them.

[charles p]

There are commercial vacuum machines that flood the bag with nitrogen.

[Bugflipper]

Kinda big pump flipper

Does a better job for that than the vacuum windshield wipers. I guess they figured you didn't need to see going up a mountain in the rain. 

[briarpatch]

Me and my family store a lot of food, grains and such for long storage. I use oxygen absorbers and cans. Never had a problem.

[BIG Dog454]

I've had rice beans and other grains stored in canning jars for 3 years now and no signs of deterioration. the glass jars  let you inspect your products without opening the jar.  I also have oat meal, macoronie, cream of wheat atored in that fashion.  I place the beans and other in a jar, turn the oven on to about 135 deg place the jar with a loose canning lid in place and let the pints stay till heated thru, about 20 min.  You could use quart, of 2 quart jars whatever you like, just leave them in the oven longer.  I like pint jars because a pint is just about a pound.  You can store anything that you like for a long term using this method.
BDE

[reliquary]

It sounds like the problem was residual moisture.   Mildew (fungus) will grow in a reduced-oxygen atmosphere, hence fermentation. 
 
The dry ice works for me, along with a moisture adsorbent...commercial ones are good, unused cat litter works also.
 
 I put a small canister of the cat litter in the bucket...cover it with aluminum foil and punch a few holes in the foil, or use an old half-pint jar with holes punched in the lid. 
 
I rotate my stuff out every now and then and haven't had any problems in the 2-3 year cycl I'm on.

[30calflash]

I've had rice beans and other grains stored in canning jars for 3 years now and no signs of deterioration. the glass jars  let you inspect your products without opening the jar.  I also have oat meal, macoronie, cream of wheat atored in that fashion.  I place the beans and other in a jar, turn the oven on to about 135 deg place the jar with a loose canning lid in place and let the pints stay till heated thru, about 20 min.  You could use quart, of 2 quart jars whatever you like, just leave them in the oven longer.  I like pint jars because a pint is just about a pound.  You can store anything that you like for a long term using this method.
BDE

  From your post it seems as though you are canning dry goods. Is this true?
 
 You would be creating an airtight seal and taking care of any moisture and insects that would be in the dry product.
 
 Do you use new lids for the process? I've heard of folks using used lids for dry storage but it might not be the way you have stored your goods.

[bilmac]

Light can also cause some stored foods to deteriorate. You would want to keep glass jars in the dark. They would have the advantage of not allowing gasses to penetrate as is supposed to happen with plastic containers. That is why they claim you need the mylar bag. Another disadvantage of glass is you have to think about breakage.

[BIG Dog454]

I use new lids, stored with my other canned food in a dark cool room under the porch.
The canning process seems to seal the jars in a vacuum as the lids need to be pried off.
BD

ps try it, not too expensive, the jars are reuseable and if they don't seal you can still use the product.

[mechanic]

Just can it.  It's gotta be cooked sometimes anyway.
 
Ben

[Bugflipper]

 I saw some folks on tv storing dry goods in 2 liter drink bottles. I am thinking of giving that a shot with 20 oz bottles. I thought it would be better to have hundreds of smaller servings when you open a drum instead of exposing the whole thing to air. If they had CO2 in them and were kept out of light I am guessing they would keep a good while.

[FPH]

Looking at my "stored" beans and rice, I can only conclude that humidity is the largest concern when it comes to long term food storage.  I live in an arid climate.  I put up 30 lbs of beans and 20 lbs of rice back in 1999 for Y2K.  These were put up in the bags that they were packaged in from the store.  I placed them in a corner of the pantry and forgot about them.  I looked at them tonight, and all is as if I just bought them.  When I was a kid, my Mormon neighbors would use the dry ice trick in the bottom of 50 gal barrels full of whole grain flour and various other foods.  They used the dry ice to kill bug larva, not to remove oxygen.

[reliquary]

The plastic drink bottles work pretty well.  I use them, up to 2-liter size.  Fill them about  3/4 full, squeeze the rest of the air out, seal with a piece of cling-wrap under the screw lid for an extra "gasket".  These have an extra benefit of being storable in places that buckets and boxes can't be used.  I use the little sealed dessicant packets, but not the dry ice, in these.

[Dixie Dude]

Dry Ice might get rid of oxygen, but it is super cold and attacts moisture.  Therein was the problem.  Hand warmers can be used by activating them and throwing them in the buckets, but not directly on top of the food.  We vacuum seal rice, beans, etc, and put the bags in the buckets.  That has worked for us without the hand warmers.  When we need food, open one bag at a time.  Our vacuum sealer has a canning lid attachment.  You can vacuum seal canning jars also instead of the bags.  We do shreaded cheese that way.  In pint jars which can also be frozen. 
 
The bottle idea can work also.  Save your dessicant packs out of medicine bottles.  Might want to heat them a little in the oven on dry days.  Let them cool slowly and throw them in the bottles.