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71K views 68 replies 47 participants last post by  Bluesky9 
#1 ·
How long will oats last for when stored in mylar bags with an oxygen absorber? I have some gallon mylar bags, I would like to fill them about half way with oats, seal, the fill the other half with oats.

These are the cans of rolled Quaker oats that you can get from the local china-mart. Open can, pour oats into mylar bags, insert oxygen absorber, seal, date and label bag, store in cool, dry, rodent free location.

Suggestions or other input?
 
#49 ·
I'm sorry if this has already been answered but I have a question. How many oats will fit in a one gallon mylar bag? I have looked on the forum and can't seem to find it. I'm going to be filling some for the first time and I just wanted to make sure I have enough before I start. Sorry again if this question has already been answered in another thread.
 
#50 ·
I usually get about 4 1/4 pounds of oats in a 1 gallon mylar bag. Oats weigh lighter for volume than a lot of the grains.

I fill the bag about halfway, gently bump it on the counter three or four times, fill it another 1/4 of the way up, bump again, and again when it is filled. It helps settle the oats enough to get that last little bit in the bag. :)

There is a handy chart on one of the websites that is a pretty good guide, within a very small margin anyway, that might help you. https://www.usaemergencysupply.com/...storage/how_much_food_fits_in_a_container.htm
 
#56 ·
This is exactly one of the other reasons I signed up on here, to learn what to do with my bulk storage supplies. They are staring at me right now on the dining room table waiting for me to store. I just purchased 100 1 gallon ziploc mylar bags and o2 absorbers off of amazon, but was going to put up some pinto beans and rice in them and place them in square totes. Will see how it turns out. I was also going to do salt, sugar, and oats, cornmeal and all purpose flour.
 
#57 ·
I don't think that storing for 30 yrs. is unreasonable if done properly. After reading this thread I opened a 1 qt. 7 mil. mylar bag with a 300 cc oxygen absorber containing 2 cups of quick oats (don't remember the brand) that had a date of 7/15/99. No odd smells, clumps, or discoloring. After cooking a batch the flavor to me was no different than a batch made from a fresh container purchased 1 month ago. The only issue was the computer printed label was dried out and had lost it's stick. I was very happy to find that all is OK.
 
#59 ·
Hi, Folks.
I was reading through this thread about packaging rolled oats in mylar.
I had also read on another site that you're supposed to freeze pretty much any grains you get for at least 48 hours to make sure that there are no beasties in there that will continue to survive the packaging process.
I've done that... any idea how long to leave them out of the freezer at room temperature before packaging them so that there's no condensation in the mylar bag and they don't all get ruined?
THANKS IN ADVANCE!
 
#60 ·
If simple freezing was enough to destroy insects, most of this country would be insect-free. Don't waste your time and freezer space. In order to be effective, you have to freeze to kill the adults, defrost to allow the eggs to hatch, and freeze again before more eggs can be laid to kill the new larvae/adults. Timing on the freezing cycle depends on the specific pest you are trying to kill, and you usually need several cycles to be sure of total eradication.

That said, the way to avoid condensation any time it is an issue is to bring something to room temp with free air flow before packaging.

As for the insects, 2 weeks sealed in mylar with an oxygen absorber is enough to kill insects, larvae, pupae, and eggs of all species. So just package properly and forget playing with the freezer. There's lots of sorta, kinda works advice out there from before there were oxygen absorbers, which make it all unnecessary.
 
#61 ·
Technology is fantastic. We used to use dry ice in our wheat buckets - without Mylar. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how we might have gotten the grain into the bucket without displacing the CO2 from the dry ice but we sure hoped it worked. Of course I still eat some of that wheat and don't find any bugs so we didn't do too badly. Even so, I love the simplicity, repeatability, and reliability, of Mylar and O2 Absorbers.
 
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#64 ·
Multisorb and Mitsubishi Oxygen absorbers will also react to carbon dioxide.

In normal air, only 20% of the air (O2) will react with the absorbers. A pre-flush of carbon dioxide could result in very high levels of carbon dioxide gas to react with the O2 absorbers.

The air (with 20%) that is introduced with grain would certainly result in a final O2 content above 1%.

If pre-flushing with CO2, I would recommend using 5 times the number of O2 absorbers to guarantee that there was plenty of capacity to account for the O2.

Now we also have the problem of pulling a very strong vacuum as we no longer have 80% of an inert gas. The strength of the vacuum could increase the likelihood of grain punctures through the mylar or another mylar failure.

This problem could be alleviated by conducting a nitrogen flush to provide some inert gas volume. Once we are going to the trouble of a getting a nitrogen tank, I would actually recommend using Argon as the inert gas.

By this time, much of the O2 and CO2 would have been displaced, but as percentages of absorbable gases were high as 100%, I would still want to use at least two of the O2 absorbers.

As the O2 and CO2 content are going to vary greatly, the amount of "suction" on each pail is going to be significantly different. Some people like to evaluate the quality of the seal and effectiveness of the O2 absorbers by the consistent vacuum that is pulled. Of course, different grains or noodles are going to have differing amounts of observable vacuum characteristics. This practice could not be used for any type of a sanity check for the multi-flush process.

In the past, there were many different preservation methods. New methods are accepted that provide better results than our historical favorites because they are better methods . . . or they are not if they are not better methods.
 
#65 ·
I've been mylaring up (is that a term?) oats and I found a canister of oats, expired in 2015. Stored in an unheated, uncooled upstairs closet. Opened it to see if it had gone bad. Still fine.

I won't mylar it up, but I'll use it up next. But I just wanted to post this. Oats, stored in nothing other than the original carton, were still fine 5 years past the best by date.

Also, if it helps anyone wondering how much oats fit into a 1 gallon mylar bag... A 2lb 10oz container fills a bag with a little more room left, if you wanted to add more. I doubt you'd get more than 3lbs in there.

I found a chart on another site listing how much of a variety of things fit into mylar bags. So far the chart showed way more as fitting than I got. I think it said 4.25 lbs of oats. I can't see that.
 
#68 ·
Quick oats store well with oxygen absorbers. I just opened a #10 can from 20 years ago and they tasted fresh, no bugs, and normal odor. I recently stored 400 pounds of oats in 20 5-gallon buckets. The Quaker Quick Oats at Sams or Costco sells a box of 10 pounds and two box's of 10 pounds fits nicely in a 5-gallon bucket (20 pounds total). Shake it down and compress it a bit, but 20 pounds does fit perfectly. I put a 2000cc absorber at the bottom and one at the top, evac a bit with a vacuum, and then heat seal with the hot jaw sealer. The bags seal up very nice. I freeze the oats for a week before doing all that and they dry on the counter for a day first. I was packaging the oats in 1 gallon mylar bags, but it was taking to long. The 5-gallon mylars sacks is the way to go. I figure in a survival situation, they'll go pretty fast. By the way, I store the oats in an orange HD bucket, beans in green Minards buckets, sugar in Lowes blue, pasta in TS red, rice in Walmart white. The buckets all cost the same and color coordinating in my root cellar makes it easy to know what I have.
 
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