food pails
 

Exactly what are you storing? I bought my pails, Mylar bags , oxygen absorbers and Diatomaceous Earth. I found big bags of rice at Costco. I also found bags of flour and sugar there . I will have to buy the beans elsewhere. What other types of products can you store long term in pails and how long will other products last. What about baking mix?
I thinking about 50 pounds each of green coffee beans and dry milk. sugar, flour, rice. beans and baking mix. The rest I will order from Mountain House.

Re: food pails
 

I'd probably avoid the flour for long term. Store wheat and grind as needed.

I also store oats, corn.

Re: food pails
 

white wheat
black beans
white beans
pinto beans
sugar
dried onions
dried potato flakes (the kind with no milk added)
dried no fat milk
dried carrot slices
dried appe slices
rolled oats
quick oats
chocolate pudding mix
soup starter mix
refried beans
macoroni
spaghetti noodles

All stocked in various quantities in #10 cans. Al have very long shelf lives except for the choc pudding and refried beans, they are about 10 yrs i think..everything else should be 20-30 yrs.

We favor the macoroni over the spaghetti noodles becuase they are much easier to can.

Re: food pails
 

Andy, I found the wheat berries and oats online here with free shipping and handling. How do the prices look?
What do you do with corn. Is it popping corn?
http://www.bulkfoods.com/grain.asp

Re: food pails
 

Tech guy will those things last as long if I put them up myself in mylar and 5 gallon buckets as opposed to buying them? Also does Diatomaceous Earth just go in wheat and rice or all products?

Re: food pails
 

Agreed. Flour goes rancid in under 1 year. Whole white or red wheat is best.

Grinders range from 75 to 300.

Re: food pails
 

If packaged with oxygen absorbers in small containers, large containers should be sublimated with dry ice. you may get a little less time since it is not in steel, at least going by the LDS guidelines.

I like the 3 gal buckets with gasketed lids for short term storage. www.upsplastics.com

Re: food pails
 

Thanks,
BTW I have gone crazy with my food saver. They are great for polishing your pms and then sealing them so they stay shiny.:D

Re: food pails
 

Dude, I was wondering what type of rice to buy. Costco has the Jasmine. I dont like white rice so I hope the Jasmine stores well.

Re: food pails
 

i've used 5 gallon pails for caches
i buried mine during the last week of september
and i'll be digging them up in late march to rotate the foodstuffs
( not sure if i have too, i'm just doing it to be pro-active )

Re: food pails
 

We used to buy the jasmine until we started using a real rice steamer. Now even the cheap white rice tastes just fine. A steamer makes all the difference in the world.

Re: food pails
 

I don't know the storage properties of jasmine, but it is tasty. 20 lbs. for $7.35 here in China Town. I bought a standard rice cooker for about $15 and my college boys made rice 3-4 times a week, for a snack. My brother has a nice "electronic" one that keeps rice good for 24 hours after cooking. I got one and now if you stopped by, instead of offering you a cup of coffee, I might offer you a bowl of rice.

Re: food pails
 

We recently opened a #10 can of nitrogen-packed whole wheat flour that was shipped to me in 1987...

My wife has baked with it and says it looks and smells fine...tastes fine, too.

Re: food pails
 

Very impressive. Maybe it is the nitro pack that makes the difference.

Re: food pails
 

I think I own the same rice cooker. :bear_tongue:

Re: food pails
 

Nitro packing DOES make a difference, I'm convinced. I recently opened a #10 can of dry milk that we bought in 1995, stored in a cool location since, and it was fine.

I store corn for cornmeal. We like cornbread/etc.

Re: food pails
 

Just to bring this up: Storing is fine, but wouldn't it be advisable to store viable seed as your grain if possible? I know corns will be hybrids, many wheats as well, but if you put some attention to the matter, I'm sure you could find viable grain for storage. And a crop for your area, unlike rice, for instance, much as I like it. (Texans and Cajuns excepted)

SEED is actually a bit different as it's the best cut of the grain, usually the largest seeds. But any bin-grain from a viable non-hybrid would do. Be careful if buying SEED that it hasn't been treated in many possible ways. Of course if you happened to grow a 10x10m area and harvested the viable seed, which has no weevils and costs you next to nothing, that is one way to practice.

And storing long-term dried apples? Plant a tree, plant a dozen trees. In both cases with one you bought a little more road down the cul-de-sac and in the other, your decendants could live indefinitely on what you've created. Create production, not consumption.

Please, please, please. I can't think of a more important lesson than this. The issues we have today are all from taking too much and creating too little. We alone can't solve that, but at the least we should prepare to give more than we take, and over a 100 year time-horizon, as you would in a vinyard or olive grove. Besides, you can't share tins, but you can share grafts.

Don't think food: think farm.

TS

Re: food pails
 

I do think farm.....long term, it's the ONLY way to think........for example, growing Hickory King non hybrid corn last year.....but you have to have a year or two of food stored as well, IMHO....for crop failures, for "what if the SHTF in October and you're 6-8 mo from a crop", for "what if large amounts of population are roaming the landscape after a SHTF deal and will strip your growing farm of anything edible"....that kind of thing.....

Re: food pails
 

Doesnt work during a TSHTF scenario. Hundreds if not thousands of starving people in your neighborhooed and you having fruit trees is a really bad combo if you must have that food to survive.

Once the initial starvation phase is over, then the fruit trees will be a godsend,but dont count on them when everyone is kiling everyone else for food. You trying to defend your fruit trees will result in you getting killed for them.

You should have tiers of preparedness:

Short term food storage: TSHTF for up to one year
Long term food generation: Seeds, fruit trees, vines, gardens, etc.

Re: food pails
 

It seems like if you have fruit trees, and something serious happens, you should be out picking them pronto, and living off the fruit for a while so it won't go bad. I guess at that point fruit drying would be an important skill as well.

Re: food pails
 

But only if TSHTF during harvest time for your fruits. Otherwise you better have some cans.

Re: food pails
 

a good place for long term storage wheat, rice, oats, barley, etc is
www.beprepared.com

they have a special on a years worth grains-7 super pails (about 45# each) for about $240, shipping runs $12.

i dont work for them or anything, i just like their prices and fast shipping.

they also have food grade buckets

Re: food pails
 

Yes, IF it's November and IF you don't have anything else and IF it happens before you can get around to it...

This is a problem with describing farming and food. I say, plant corn, plant trees, and they say, "so wiseacker, what wilt thou do if it's not corn and apple harvest time?" I'll move to kale, Corn salads and spring greens. "Ok wisecrupper, what if it's not Fall OR spring? What if it's winter?"

Well first I'd hope anyone where it's winter has a pantry for the winter. If not, I can't help you. But if not, I'll go to ducks and greens under the snow and deer in the woods.

But what if there are no ducks, no deer, no greens, and armed Trilobytes from Maxxon-6 are chasing you?

Merciful heavens, I can't think of everything! If you have food for the winter, it's about 6 mo worth. You may be low in spring, but as things come in, it should be steadily refilling until the fat of autumn. If you like, you could have a year's storage, although your seed corn should provide a flexible margin to either plant, plant NEXT year if this year's crop fails out, or to eat if you must but would leave no seed and thus many years of belt-tightening. This is just the normal round of life as far back as humans go.

Besides pointing out that there are hundreds of things to eat and do we haven't thought of and would take an encyclopedia/cookbook to share, My point was twofold:

One, if you have cans and use them, one day there will be no more cans. So you starve later instead of sooner.

Two, if you have the means of production, then you can live indefinitely. So if you're going to put up cans anyway, why not put the means of production IN the cans?

In sensible times, this would be in your granary, where you eat and seed in the same batch. There would be 2 1/2 years there. One to eat, one to plant, and half a one to spare if both those go bad. But no one has a granary or the year's seed corn anymore so they wouldn't know what I'm blathering about. To stock up the source of production in cryrogenically-sealed nitrogen can via 1,000 mi. mail-order delivery is the modern version of it. Besides growing saves you a thousands better spent elsewhere, halves the finish time, and doubles your preps while practicing growing? Buy non-viable food if you want but that seems a steal to me.

If you had a few apple or nut trees you'd know that starvation is a different issue. One, the crop isn't there most of the year and can't be stolen. Two, the trees cannot be effectively stolen, unlike, say, chickens. Even if the King's men guard the tree three abreast the odds of you getting nothing--not even the crumbs--is near zero. Three, trees are so productive you'll be buried in food when they do come in and it'll be all you can do to share and store the excess. All that and you get 30 year's food for the price of a night out. That's leagues above the cheapest rice or freeze-dry.

Again, modern life has led us to focus only on consumption--that we should pay for and stock what we use. But that comes from someone and somewhere else and can be cut off. Nothing is eaten until it is grown. Focus on production that you can share with others and you'll find a single acre could support many more than you imagine for centuries. Then you can give, provide, and share instead of hiding, hoarding, and shooting.

I'd rather be in control of an unlimited production than a dwindling supply, especially at a large discount, but to each his own.

TS

Re: food pails
 

I am not opposed to production, and I am taking active steps on my own property to provide as much as possible. But I will also hedge my bets with the cheap food I can store away today.

Many natural and man made disasters could potentially wipe out any crops and trees you may have, so don't depend totally on them.

Events that can render your crops useless:
Nuclear fallout
Flood
Fire
Plague of some type, bird flu etc.
Bio weapons
Ash fallout from volcanoes or meteor
Drought

Re: food pails
 

Hey you guys seen this web site for food storage?

It has some great information on how to store food in pails, why to use mylar bags and oxygen absorbers, why throwing in a few moisture desiccants packs is pointless, and even talks about using nitrogen.

very good stuff!

https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/i...eservation.htm