I use the LDS Cannery. I canned in the last 3 months(# 10 cans), wheat, oats, potato chunks, potato flakes, dehydrated pinto beans, apple chunks, Just to name some of it.

A better idea is to store your stocks in food grade buckets. Make sure they have a rubber seal on the lid. A (3) few Oxi absorbers and you can store foods for a very long time. TDW and I have a couple closets full of 4 and 6 gallon buckets with long term stores in them.

Another thing Flower goes bad in a year. Yes even in a bucket. We buy wheat. It stores decades and is fresh when we grind it. Ground Pop Corn makes some of the best Corn Meal you ever had!

Don

 

So dilligaf2u2....where are you buying popcorn? Sam's Club? I've noticed it there in 25lb bags. Doesn't that have a little bit higher moisture content than grain corn?

 

I was wondering the same thing. Is the Sam's popcorn GTG?

Online purchasing is a bit expensive, when factoring in shipping. And Sam's in just down the road a bit...

Thanks in advance.

Prag

 

I dont have the oxygen absorbers or the buckets. But I had lots of canning jars. I thought the principle would work the same removing the air thru the pressure canner.

 

Canning doesn't remove the air. It sterilizes by heat. There is still plenty of O2 to cause oxidation.

 

I wondered how long the food with last if you used a Foodsaver and canning jars and vacuumed the air out.

 

I bought the Pump-n-Seal vaccum. It's manually operated. Creates an incredible seal on jars. Something like 25 lbs of vacuum on a Mason jar. You can use it on any kind of jar, even with a screw on lid. Comes with an attachment for sealing bags, but I haven't tried it yet.

One tip: Don't vaccum pack sugar. Ask me how I know

 

One tip: Don't vaccum pack sugar. Ask me how I know

Okay, I'll bite, How do you know? What happens?

Allan

 

read next post please....screwed this one up. Sorry for wasting space.

 

It turns to concrete

 

Well, I see your location is in MO- so the humidity does that right? I live in Las Vegas (dry-dry-dry) But just to be on the safe side, I am going to go break into one of my sugar storage buckets & take out my oldest bag.

I use the food saver to seal the sugar, then rest them inside mylar (7 mil thick bag)- then O2 absorbers....then seal the mylar 95% of the way....THEN stick the food saver hose down inside the mylar bag to suck out all that air......THEN seal it up. Whew!
That's how I do it- verrrrrrrrrry anal retentive here! I'll log back on later and let you know if I have sugar, or bricks.

 

WOW! That's a lot of sealing for sugar. I'm anxious to hear how your's has kept.

 

Well, I found my sugar stash! Popped off the top- I had 2/10lb bags at the bottom....and 4/4lb bags on the top. All sealed on the same day back in the month of Nov. 2006. I remember buying all that sugar really cheap before the holidays hit.

side note: the 4lb bags were bought for $2 each @ Smith's grocery store
the 10lb bags were bought for $2.53 @ Sam's Club (same month)
I alway write price / location on the outside....ANYHOW
The big bag I snipped open and dumped into an empty bucket- it was FINE, other than a few clumps. The instant I touched it it fell back into "sand" formation. You can't tell if they are bricks or not until you snip them open because the food saver sucks so much air out of them- it's like a rock. The 4lb bag did the same thing...big clumps until I coaxed it out of it's coma- fell back into the typical sugar appearance.
So I only opened two bags- I plan on rotating them out now.

This double bagging system we use really does work very well. Someone said flour only lasts roughly a year. Well, ours was bagged the same time the sugar was bagged...still bright white- fluffy- and smells fine. I haven't made bread with it yet- but I will. I do think it's better to store wheat though- flour is tricky. We can do it here because it's so dry and we really don't have to worry about the humidity playing a role in our LTFS.
But I woudn't give flour more than 2 years MAX. It's almost a waste of time & money to store it up.

 

Foodsaver and LDS Mylar bags

Hi,

This is my first post and I'm reading through this thread with great interest. One question, for those of you with a Foodsaver machine or similar, can these machines seal an LDS Storehouse mylar bag? It would be much more convenient for me than checking out our Ward's mylar bag sealer.

Thanks!

 

Hi,

This is my first post and I'm reading through this thread with great interest. One question, for those of you with a Foodsaver machine or similar, can these machines seal an LDS Storehouse mylar bag? It would be much more convenient for me than checking out our Ward's mylar bag sealer.

Thanks!

Hi Stockwet! I simply use an iron and my husband's metal level. I don't have the money to buy the FoodSaver. I've used my method to seal the LDS mylar bags perfectly fine.

 

Yes, you can use your foodsaver to seal mylar bags.

 

I seal our mylar bags almost all the way across, then insert my foodsaver tube (comes with the unit, for sealing canisters)....and suck out almost all the remaining air. Then quickly seal the corner off with the foodsaver. We buy the 7 mil thick mylar bags. Foodsaver does a beautiful job! I suppose we could re-seal with an iron to create a wider band of seal....but it wastes so much of the bag. We re-use our mylars.

***HINT*** Should you purchase a large quantity of 5-6 gallon mylar bags, you can cut them down and seal new sides with the foodsaver- make smaller "pouches" for storing smaller quantities.

We don't store 25 pounds of rice in one gigantic mylar bag. If we opened it up for usage....we would be exposing the entire contents of that mylar to the elements. So we break it up into smaller portions for preservation's sake. So far, so good.


FYI: Regarding the above post I added on 8-8-08....I DID make a few small loaves of bread & a batch of cookies with that flour this afternoon. Worked fine. I did two loaves regular, one in the bread machine...and sugar cookies. Everything was as fresh and normal as it would have been from the store today.

 

Food saver cacuum sealers have attachments for some models to seal regular and wide mouth jars. It is very quick and easier than using a canner. Personally I store my beans and rice in mylar with O2 obsorbers. Pasta, I have had good luck just keeping it on the shelf or in buckets with no special preservation measures. Just keep it in a cool, dry, dark place. I have pasta that is 5 years old, and it cooks up just fine.

 

I've done this with my foodsaver, but I found that bags worked better for me for things like rice, flour and sugar.

What I do is to add a bay leaf to anything grain based and freeze it at least 24 hours. That kills any possibility of cupboard pests. I have some large lidded containers that I put the bags into so that they don't accidentally get punctured. I suppose you could also add an oxygen absorber to a larger container, but while a lot of folks swear by five gallon buckets, I worry that a five gallon bucket's harder to hide than a 3 pound bag of rice. So far, the bay-leaf-and-freeze method's worked fine.

 

Doesn't that have a little bit higher moisture content than grain corn?

Yes popcorn does, or can, have a higher moisture than field corn but not much. Field corn has a preferred moisture of 11.5 - 13% but a maximum water content of 15.5% is tolerate.
Popcorn, a special kind of flint corn developed by Indians, has it’s maximum popping volume produced at moistures ranging from 13.0 to 14.5%, with 13.5% being optimum but for longer term storage, it should be dried to 12.5-13.5%. On the plus side, popcorn has the hardest seed coat of all corn types to protect it. Many grinders caution not to grind popcorn as it can damage the burrs after awhile.

 

I did not know that. Thanks. Soooooo, would you suggest staying away from the popping corn for your LTFS? Stick to grain corn? I haven't stored any yet- waiting on optimal buying season.
Also....would higher storage temps affect the internal moisture of corn at all? (Since it does contain trace amounts of moisture)
When I say higher temps, I mean upwards of 100 degrees for 3 month summer season? We cannot avoid the heat where we stash our LTFS....Does this cast a deterioration spell on corn at all? Thanks

 

Popcorn for Long Term Storage

Well, the storage recommendation that I use as a guide recommends 20lb per person just to pop normally. But remember too, you can dry pop popcorn too (fats & oils will be in very short supply) and use the pop corn in cooking and for breakfast cereal. It is after all just puffed up corn. It still works to thicken soups, stews, “bread” puddings and so on. Even if it doesn’t pop, parching makes it easier to grind in to a meal.

If you can get it, flour type corn would be the best (soft & easy to grind flour fine) but regular field corn would certainly work. Corn is more susceptible to rancidity than wheat because of its fairly high oil content. That is one of the things that make it a good energy food too. The information that I have is on storing corn for several seasons in a crib but the principle should still apply. Canadian corn can be stored with up to 15.5% moisture but in South America it is 11 to 12.5 % is recommended so you may need to dry it to this level.

Now you need to know the average storage temperature of your grain over the year because heat is the other enemy of storage foods even when you have them dry & free of oxygen. Walton’s gives corn a storage life of 8 years maximum at 70oF even when packed for LTFS. Every 18oF above this halves your storage life. So at 106oF corn only stores 2 years! Fortunately, it is not in the hundreds every month of the year so you need to do a yearly average for your area of your state. You will need to do a web search. Say on average your yearly temperature is 86oF, then the storage life should be about 4 years. Even that is a pretty hot average so you might get 5 or 6 years but you need to know this! This is why I chose to store wheat in bulk (its storage life is 25 years maximum at 70oF) as I have had corn go bad and Wisconsin has few days even breaking 90oF.

Now if you can recycle the corn through you animals (either cracked or soaked until soft is best) and replace it regularly this is, maybe, not so bad. Up to you.

 

Now you need to know the average storage temperature of your grain over the year because heat is the other enemy of storage foods even when you have them dry & free of oxygen. Walton’s gives corn a storage life of 8 years maximum at 70oF even when packed for LTFS. Every 18oF above this halves your storage life. So at 106oF corn only stores 2 years! Fortunately, it is not in the hundreds every month of the year so you need to do a yearly average for your area of your state. You will need to do a web search. Say on average your yearly temperature is 86oF, then the storage life should be about 4 years. Even that is a pretty hot average so you might get 5 or 6 years but you need to know this! This is why I chose to store wheat in bulk (its storage life is 25 years maximum at 70oF) as I have had corn go bad and Wisconsin has few days even breaking 90oF.

So at an average of 79.6 F, corn would last 5 or 6 years, instead of the 8 years?

 

If my calculations are correct, 5.22 years.

 

Storing dry goods in glass jars?

I don't have a lot of time to read forums but wanted to ask if any of you ever tried storing dry goods in glass jars - for example, flour, putting it in the jar and putting it through the pressure canner like you would canning corn or green beans. Does that work for dry things I want to keep dry and bug free for a long time?
thank you

 

Canning dry things like flour

I don't have a lot of time to read forums but wanted to ask if any of you ever tried storing dry goods in glass jars - for example, flour, putting it in the jar and putting it through the pressure canner like you would canning corn or green beans. Does that work for dry things I want to keep dry and bug free for a long time?
thank you

Hi Ruby! I haven't canned flour because it will not extend the shelf life very far when it comes to flour. Flour's shelf life is 18 mos - 3 years (and that's probably too generous) with or without special canning. I keep my flour supply in the freezer. Like someone mentioned earlier, it's better to buy the red winter wheat berries (whole grain) and process them through a grain mill, since whole grain wheat has a 30 year shelf life (if you can it or put it in a mylar bag with O2 absorbers).

 

but salt and sugar draw moisture (as does flour and cornmeal), or get wet in some other way - would "canning" them keep the moisture from seeping in? I can't afford to buy another storage gadget right now, all I have is my pressure canner and jars.

 

Hey Ruby! Yes, they do draw moisture so you want to keep them dry. I live in a very humid environment (60 - 99% humidity on any given day) with some of the largest, most disgusting bugs on earth - so I have to battle the elements and creepy wildlife when it comes to these foods. I am more on the limited side when it comes to obtaining canning and packaging supplies, so I save what I have for the rice, wheat, and oats that I buy in bulk. If you have a lot of jars, then I would go for it. You just don't need to spend as much time packaging these items since they don't spoil over time like other foods do.

I like to save my jars for "wet" food storage.

 

Extending shelf life is not really the idea, well sort of but keeping it safe, dry, bug free minus the freezer is the goal. I do freeze flour, but what if my electric goes away? Then what? And in the years past I've had flour get damp in the freezer some way or another, then harden and be gross.

So how do I keep my dry goods dry and safe with out the freezer and not buying another mechanical tool?

And you say a shelf life of 3 years max - what happens after three years to make it unfit to eat?

thanks a lot.

 

Good questions. The shelf life of flour, for example, is short because you break apart the inner germ of the seed and it begins to degrade nutritionally - immediately. So the wheat berry goes down from a 30 year shelf life to a mere 18 mos - 3 year shelf life when made into flour. Whole wheat berries keep about 80% of their nutritional value even at 30 years. Flour becomes nutritionally void after the 3 years time and the taste is not too hot from what others tell me.

Same thing with corn. Whole corn lasts between 8 to 12 years (depending on how you can or package it), cracked/ground corn lasts between 18 mos - 3 years too.

You definitely want to keep everything dry - that will extend the shelf life no matter what, with or without a freezer. So if you want to can it, then I would do it. I just rotate my supplies to keep them fresh - I bake a lot, so I'm always rotating my flour. Hope this answers most of your questions.

 

As I am a novice at storing supplies I'll ask more newbie questions to benefit the other newbies too shy to ask.

With salt and sugar can you get by simply sealing it in 5 gal gasketed buckets with out the O2 absorbers or mylar bags?

What about dry yeast? What's the best way to store it?

Thanks,

Mac

 

Salt and sugar don't need any special treatment other than keeping it dry. Yeast is a dormant living organism. About the only thing that will keep it for an extended period of time is freezing. I buy blocks of yeast from Sam's. It's vacuum sealed and freezes well. They'll last about a year unopened. Maybe a few years in the freezer.

Realistically, I think the only way to keep yeast going long term is to keep a batch fed and active.

 

I tried it with rice and sugar, both of which pack fairly tight and leave very little in the way of air. I wouldn't recommend it for beans unless you include an O2 absorber because there is still a quantity of air in the jar.

As a method of storage, I gave it up in favor of a vacuum packer; a quart jar only held about 2 1/4 cups, and it seemed like it took too many jars to be practical.