Question for people that store bulk food long term.

[bipolaron@scholar.social]

Question for people that store bulk food long term.

I keep dried beans, flour, rice, and sugar. I am going to start storing the individual (paper) 5lb bags in larger bins, the kind in the photo.

I am getting desiccant to put inside, but websites I find about this suggest "oxygen absorbers".

Are they AI slop articles, about a different storage technique, or are they relevant here? I assume they fail if the container is not hermetic, but ?

[srlevine@neuromatch.social]

@bipolaron Desiccant will be useless pretty fast without a sealed container. If you're worried about air or moisture your best bet is either really sealed plastic/glass containers, the original packaging if it's something like Bob's red mill, or giant ziploc bags.

[bipolaron@scholar.social]

@SRLevine what is your timescale for "pretty fast"?

I think I would be opening these every few months to refresh the pantry. I plan on reusable desiccant packets, was aiming for 2.4kg of desiccant for a 27 gallon bin.

My intuition is that this is plenty of desiccant in a closed container regardless of gasket, probably enough that it won't even all be used up after a month, but definitely not for oxygen.

[bipolaron@scholar.social]

@SRLevine so the goal is for the things that are rotated through the slowest to not go bad. probably a less popular kind of bean. Maybe three or four years.

[srlevine@neuromatch.social]

@bipolaron If it's not sealed you're effectively trying to dry the whole area the bin is in. I'm not sure of the desiccant scale (I use it too differently for it to make sense), but I'm not sure it would last more than a couple of weeks?

I can tell you that bad seals and desiccant will go bad in <1 month. And "bad seals" are better than no seals.

If this is stuff you use regularly I'm not sure I'd worry too much at all. Personally I mostly just use giant ziploc bags (plop the whole 5 lb bag into one) or I have a couple of containers with gaskets. I don't do any active drying at home (I do a lot at work). Active drying is pretty serious to do correctly and a waste of time/materials otherwise.

[bipolaron@scholar.social]

@SRLevine Cool, thanks for the intuition check. Maybe I can apply a gasket material to get a good enough seal to last a while, though I wonder if dryness will make the beans go stale anyway. Perhaps overthinking.

[srlevine@neuromatch.social]

@bipolaron If you don't want plastic just pour them into empty glass jars like from tomato sauce or something, those are air tight.

[dr2chase@ohai.social]

@bipolaron Beans that get too old, tend not to get very soft when you soak+boil them. A pressure cooker might still work. Not sure what slows this sort of aging.

[bipolaron@scholar.social]

@dr2chase yeah, though I think they at least don't go rancid, I'm not sure I can ever eat a soy curl again.

I've had some success with just soaking a lot longer but they never really recover. I bet they need a humidor

[elwoodcity@mstdn.ca]

@bipolaron

Oxygen absorbers *are* a thing, and are used for cold canning of dry foods. You seal them inside a large #10 can, along with whatever you are canning.

I don't think they would work with a tote bin, but I just have my gut reaction telling me so.