Converting bags to long term containers

[goofball]

Alright wise board I need some help. I have recently purchased some food storage items (beans, wheat, oats, etc) that were in a large 25 lb bag. What is the best way to convert that to something that will last a long time. I have heard whisperings of using white storage containers. Any ideas?

Thanks

[MsMagnolia]

our ward has used the #10 metal cans to convert large bags of food into manageable food storage sizes. They keep for a long time, resist bugs and are easy to store.

[Misshalfway]

Yes. You can get the big white buckets but you must get the right kind of lid. And then there are the mylar bags that can be sealed with an oxygen absorber or not depending...

[goofball]

Do I use an oxidizer if I were to put them in the number ten cans. I like those because they are more compact and I find they are easier to store and I imagine easier to transport in case of an emergency requiring us to leave the area.

Thanks for the info

[havejoy]

The only thing I'm aware of that you don't use the oxygen pack in is Sugar.

Just a thought but you can put 25 pounds of rice in 12 quart jars and vacuum seal them. You can get canning jars at a lot of garage sales for 0.25 each.

[hankpac]

OK, your question sounds like you are starting at the most simple of beginnings. You have product but don't know how to store it or what resources are available. I will approach from this basis.

The ward has available to it on a Stake level both a can sealer for # 10 cans (which are available empty and new at the Bishop's storehouse), and a bag sealer for mylar bags.

Obtain used but food grade and intact plastic buckets from a local bakery. Ask in advance for them to NOT cut the lids and buy them a lid lifter that will take lids off intact. Cheap investment.

Now: Mylar bags are great. They make packaging simple and allow you to package items in smaller amounts, so you can easily retrieve them from a larger container. Mylar bags of product inside a 5-6 gallon tin container is nearly perfect form of storage: the rats or mice cannot chew through the tin, the mylar bag is impervious to gas migration and with a quick squirt of CO2, and an oxygen disc, are very stable. You can seal them with a vacuum food saver, so that extends the product life even more. Finally, in a flood, the product will float, and NOT be ruined.

Next: plastic buckets. These are great too, but have a couple of draw backs. The lids are hard to lift, when full a 5 gallon bucket is heavy, and if a woman or child retrieves a heavy bucket from the storage area, and at the top of a stack of buckets, they tend to set it down hard, which over time can cause the bucket to crack on a bottom edge or in the center of the bottom, which may pass un-noticed. The crack can allow product to sift out, bugs like ants to get in, and attracts larger pests like mice, which can chew through plastic bucket sides. Still buckets are useful, and I still use them for much of my bulk product. I also squirt CO2 into these, for all beans and grains, and pastas.

#10 cans: All dry product can g o into #10 cans, and using the church's sealing tools, they are an excellent means of storage. Box, and mark each 6 cans, so you know what is inside. You can do this also at the Storehouse, since they have the tools there for everything. A can is 58 cents, the lid is 13 cents, plastic lid is 8 cents, and the box is 57 cents. they are usually sold as a package, so get a box and two plastic lids for every 6 cans and lids.

Oxygen absorbers: these are plastic discs that contain powdered iron filings. This reacts with the oxygen in the air in a can to oxidize and bind oxygen. That's all it does, it does not pull a vacuum, it does not absorb ALL of the air, nor does it sanitize or do anything else. The reason to bind oxygen is solely to keep weevils from hatching. Almost ALL grains and ground grain has weevil eggs in it.

CO2 will do the same thing. It is heavier than air, displaces air, dries moisture, and prevents weevils from hatching.

Product that has hatched weevils is ruined. It is NOT extra protein, as some people will say. It is only edible if you are in a starvation situation.

CO2: Available at welding shops: rent a big H tank, with a hose, regulator, and a nozzle with a 16" extension tube on the end, to poke down into product. Don't try it on powdered products! POOF!

When taking out product from buckets with CO2, don't pour, dip carefully, so you don't slosh the CO2 out, and it will sit in the bucket just fine, until emptied. CO2 is heavier than air. Pretty cool!

Keep your product stored inside the house, so there are not huge swings in temperature. Keep it at least as cool as 70 degrees, and preferably cooler. Heat is far worse, than freezing.

Treat all containers gently.

Inspect old containers when shifting them around to obtain buckets on the bottom of stacks.

Be creative when deciding where to keep stuff, and write it down! Inventory everything.

Rotate product: Depending on your budget, you can rotate everything so that nothing is older than 5 years. That is, you will always be eating 5 year old food, and buying and storing a little bit each month.

Watch for sales, and bargains, buy more than you figure you need, and consult charts to know how much you're targeted to have for your group.

Yes, you may print this out.

Edited June 10, 2008 by hankpac
spelling

[Iggy]

The only thing I'm aware of that you don't use the oxygen pack in is Sugar.

Just a thought but you can put 25 pounds of rice in 12 quart jars and vacuum seal them. You can get canning jars at a lot of garage sales for 0.25 each.

You don't need to vacuum seal the rice. Just make sure that the jars are very dry and that the seals and rims of the jars are flawless.

As for the flour- talk to your Ward/Branch/Stake Cannery person, and do that up in the #10 cans at the cannery.

Beans you can do in quart jars also. OR you can use a Food Saver (this is the best brand, in my opinion) and vacuum seal the beans, rice and pasta.

Also don't store your plastic buckets directly on the floor, especially if that floor is cement. Raise it up on pallets- or 2 X 4's. Yes you can use flour that has weevils in it. Just pick or sift them out. Your ancestors ate weevils and all.

Edited June 11, 2008 by Iggy

[LarryKJ7YM]

I have purchased a Mylar bag sealer, Mylar Bags, and the oxygen absorber packs and am ready to go. I of course worry about the potential of rodents finding my packs and doing harm. I do not wish to go into overkill on this but I am thinking of placing these packs into reconditioned food grade buckets. My question is on the lids I will need. They vary a lot in price, but can be found fairly cheap if they do not have the sealing rubber gasket. Does anyone here feel I really need to double seal? I am thinking we should be able to buy the simple non gasketed lids if the only real intent is rodent control?

Larry Casa Grande AZ

[hankpac]

IMNSHO, You can use non-sealing lids if all your bags are airtight.

However, why BUY buckets, when you can talk to your donut bakery, and get all of theirs for free?

If you live in a larger town, you will have several bakeries, so ask around until you find someone who wants to get rid of them. Use only buckets that have been used for food, bakery items especially: Pickles and meats and other stinky items will NOT wash out.

I mostly use frosting buckets.

Mice may not bother, but rats WILL eat through plastic, especially if it smells like food.

If you have ANY rats or mice or other rodents GET THEM OUT. Rats harbor fleas, which carry bubonic plague (8 cases in Los Angeles two years ago) and mice urinate on everything, which is how they transmit Hanta Virus (which is deadly).

If they have gotten in for a short term, clean all surfaces including outsides of all cans with 1. industrial strength cleaner/disinfectant, then 2. wipe with a bleach soaked rag, changing the bleach often. Wear and dispose of rubber gloves.

Bags which you have opened should be stored elsewhere (reseal or roll and clip or put in a tupperwear), not in the bucket, since insects (ants, silverfish, weevils) can pass the Non-sealing lids.

If you are going to BUY cans consider the metal cans (the 5 gal green metal cans), since rodents and such cannot eat their way through.

Edited July 3, 2008 by hankpac

[UintahJack]

Thanks for all the good advice on all of your posts. I'm busy trying to copy and paste all this. Keep it coming. (I know, I know, there is already a lot of good info on the web like on the Provident Living web site)

[California_Dreaming]

You mentioned in yor post of 6/2008 not to store plastic buckets on the floor, especially concrete floor. What's the reason for using pallets with plastic containers?

[pitcher]

the book "Emergency Preparedness The Right Way" gives a lot of good information on packaging food and water for long term storage.

[Guest Alana]

You don't need to vacuum seal the rice. Just make sure that the jars are very dry and that the seals and rims of the jars are flawless.

As for the flour- talk to your Ward/Branch/Stake Cannery person, and do that up in the #10 cans at the cannery.

Beans you can do in quart jars also. OR you can use a Food Saver (this is the best brand, in my opinion) and vacuum seal the beans, rice and pasta.

Also don't store your plastic buckets directly on the floor, especially if that floor is cement. Raise it up on pallets- or 2 X 4's. Yes you can use flour that has weevils in it. Just pick or sift them out. Your ancestors ate weevils and all.

We get a lot of pantry moths and bark lice around here. Sometimes I'll find one in the food. We still use it if I don't get too grossed out. What they don't know won't hurt them;)

[sixpacktr]

I got some mylar bags and oxygen absorbers from USA Emergency and spent 1/2 of this last Saturday repacking all of our rice, wheat, flour and sugar. I had bought some plastic rubber maid containers to lay the grains and the like in, and then I found a rat in my pool. (yuck. had to pick the sucker up with the net and fling him in the burn pile). Anyway, I packed wheat and rice in Home Depot buckets lined with mylar also the wheat and flour in mylar bags in 5-10 pound increments. I was very impressed with how easy the operation really was. Put my iron on the 'wool' setting, filled my bags, put in oxygen packs (I overkilled on those, I know, but seeing the bags 'draw down' meant I got all of the oxygen out), and ironed them closed. Now I know that my food truly is water proof, air proof, rodent proof. I will buy more bags so that I can do it as I get the food instead of spending so much time doing it (and killing my back).

My wife is raving about the vacuum seals that you use on mason jars, that you can put Oreos in a jar, vacuum seal it, and come back 3 years later and they are fresh as they ever were. Where do I get one of these without breaking the bank? Same with a dehydrator. I'm very interested in getting a good one that won't cost me an arm and a leg so that I can dry my veggies next year instead of putting them in the fridge and having them rot....

[California_Dreaming]

have used the Food Saver vacuum sealer for years for saving left overs and have recently used the jar vacuum feature for vacuum sealing (along with O2 absorbers) those foods that can not be purchased from the cannery.

I live near earth quake country and have only felt one quake that I needed to grab hold of something. This has me thinking that glass jars maybe aren't the best storage vessel, if there is another option. I do alot of canning and have secured those jars with bars across the front of the shelves.

When possible I use the #10 cans with products from the cannery.

My question is this. Certain products, like Rigatoni have sharps edges or points, and the food saver bags are easily punctured eliminating the vacuum. I have just purchased a vacuum sealer from Sorbet Systems and bags with an 8 mil thickness.

The 8x8 size is perfect for my empty nest household and to share with my children. The 8mil bags that I purchased have about a 50/50 chance of sealing.

The clear bags allow light in so I would like to stick with Mylar bags and something in the smaller size. I realize that I am paying a premium for small bag storage, but feel that this is probably the most econimical size so as not to have much wastage.

Any suggestions on thickness or anything else? Maybe I'm using the sealer wrong, at the incorrect length of sealing, etc.

Thanks for your help.

[hankpac]

I have used the original bag to line the mylar bag to prevent punctures. Works well.

Just leave the product in the original bag, nip off a corner so the bag will vacuum, and viola.

As to the question (another person posted this) about setting cans on the floor, the only reason I avoid this is due to setting the bucket down too hard, and cracking the plastic. Using a pallet obviates this, since the boards have some spring. If you don't have room or just don't want to use pallets, be sure that someone strong lifts the buckets down from over three high, to avoid just that occurrence. Setting a bucket down hard, when full onto it's corner, can crack the bucket, and if you don't see it, you have compromised one line of defense. If the product is stored loose, it will leak out, and allow moisture and ants in.

INVENTORY everything.