[2feathers75]

I read somewhere that you should freeze items such as dried beans or rice for (I think) 48 hours before you put it in long-term storage. This was supposed to keep any possible bug eggs from hatching and ruining the food. Does anyone know anything about this and what all it applies to?

 

[BOHICA6]

Yep - Your going to need a food grade (NEW) 6 gallon plastic bucket with lid, some bleach and water. A mylar bag and a freezer or dry ice, and lastly a vaccum cleaner. OR - Food grade diaetamaceous (DE) earth (I know I FUBARed the spelling on that one)

#1 Clean the bucket with bleach and water, to include the rim. Check carefully for cracks, if you find any start over. Allow bucket to dry

#2 Put mylar bag in the bucket, check for tears - I fill mine with a bleach and water solution and hold looking for leaks. Empty and dry carefully and through.

#3 Put your food in the bag: This is where you have several options. THe most effective is DE. DE is microscopic sea shells that act like razor blades to roaches, weevils, ect. BUT you can eat the stuff all day, just be careful and wear a dust mask as it's bad ju ju if it gets in your lungs. You can just mix the stuff up.

* You can freeze the food for 24 to 36 hours and immediately store in the bucket and seal. (Still in mylar) The vaccum cleaner sucks the air out, and I forgot you'll need an iron and a scrap of wood to iron the open end shut.

* You can go lo-budget if you dont have a bag you can put bay leaves in the bottom of the bucket, add your food untill its about a handswidth from the top. Add about 1 to 2 pounds of dry ice (I buy mine at the supermarket) Place in a towel (Clean) on top of the food and leave the lid cracked. Wait about 20 min, the dry ice turns to CO2 and settles to the bottom of the bucket, Cap the bucket and seal. Check up on the bucket in 2 to 4 hours. IF the bucket seems caved in, crack lightly and repeat.

The CO2 replaces the oxygen in the bucket and if any critters survive they choke on the co2 - free protein!

Look up a chic called Peggy Layton, she's the queen of food storage and prep. Or go here http://www.zyz.com/survivalcenter/index.html Check out a book called "Basic Survival"

Good Luck

B6

 

[Kenno]

10 years ago I used the freezer, mylar bags and buckets to store beans, powdered milk, sugar, salt and rice. I froze the foods for 2 weeks @-20. I did not use any other methods like vacume sealing or bay leaves. I have consumed half of the food over the years and with the exception of the powdered milk everything is fine. My dried black beans do require a pressure cooker as the skins on the beans have toughened a bit but otherwise the white,red, pinto beans and rice seem perfectly normal in all ways. The sugar and salt are fine as well. Tough the buckets have been stored in out-buildings for many years I have had no insect infestation but I used Gamma lids on the buckets and they have an O ring seal. As I open these buckets often to access the food I find that the Gamma lids are well worth the price.

 

[230gr]

IMO. You are doing way too much work.
You just need to
1. Use a Mylar bag
2. Add your grain
3. add enough oxygen absorbers
4. Seal air tight
5. Oxygen absorbers chemically react with oxygen & moisture
6. Forming a metal oxide and actually drawing a vacuumed in the bag
7. this kills even the eggs and prevents oxidation of the food.
8. This is better than CO2 or N2
9. Freezing & DE are not necessary unless your storing bulk grain from in a bin
10. that grain should be stored with a DE treatment and frozen when brought in
11. eggs survive freezing so then CO2 or N2 suffocates the buggers
Clean, dry grain stored directly in Mylar with oxygen absorbers is the way to go as long as you can buy them.

 

[Kenno]

230 Grn
I have found rice and other dry food products infested with weavils in the grocery store, I know this is rare but it speaks to freezing your bulk foods as a precaution, especially if you are not going to use oxygen absorbers and sealed bags.

 

[230gr]

And they will spread to your whole pantry too!
The little devils are eatable in their larva state but convince the wife of that!

 

[BOHICA6]

Ewwww- I was kidding about the protien. So I guess my rice is good for my grandkids then

Semper Paratus!

 

[Rena OConnor]

IMO. You are doing way too much work.
You just need to
1. Use a Mylar bag
2. Add your grain
3. add enough oxygen absorbers
4. Seal air tight
5. Oxygen absorbers chemically react with oxygen & moisture
6. Forming a metal oxide and actually drawing a vacuumed in the bag
7. this kills even the eggs and prevents oxidation of the food.
8. This is better than CO2 or N2
9. Freezing & DE are not necessary unless your storing bulk grain from in a bin
10. that grain should be stored with a DE treatment and frozen when brought in
11. eggs survive freezing so then CO2 or N2 suffocates the buggers
Clean, dry grain stored directly in Mylar with oxygen absorbers is the way to go as long as you can buy them.

I want to use jars instead of mylar bags, can I use this process the same way, no freezing?

 

[Camelfilter]

I want to use jars instead of mylar bags, can I use this process the same way, no freezing?

Waste of jars.

 

[IamZeke]

Freezing, bay leaves, and other old school advice on dealing with weevils and other bugs in food is outdated and mostly ineffectual.

O2As in either mylar or glass jars is how you do it right. Don't even bother with the others for redundancy either.

Mylar and O2As are all you need for almost all problems dealing with dry nonfat foods for long storage. Once done you only need to store them in the temp controlled envelope of your home.

At about 50 cents a gallon volume for storage this beats any other idea. Even using free containers have their own issues that prevent the longevity that mylar/O2As offer. It's a mindlessly easy dirt cheap food storage method with several decades of food industry use. Food packers are all about unit cost and performance, and they have all migrated over to this kind of packing.

Grandma did the best she could with the tech available to her at the time, but she'd tell you that if something is cheap and really works then go for it and skip the trip down nostalgia lane.

 

[Desertprep]

I have also heard (for dried beans) to spread them out on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for 5-10 minutes...also to kill eggs.

 

[IamZeke]

I have also heard (for dried beans) to spread them out on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for 5-10 minutes...also to kill eggs.

I'm sure it does kill, but the heat will change the nutrition longevity. It's why dry canning is poor practice. Heat and food longevity are not allies.

 

[Asag]

Freezing will kill most grain pests but it can also denature the grain if there is residual moisture within.

 

[IamZeke]

Freezing will kill most grain pests but it can also denature the grain if there is residual moisture within.

Freezing will kill the bugs but not the eggs. If freezing killed eggs there would be almost no insects in areas that get freezing temps. They would have to migrate like ducks to survive.

Most grains already have the field pests removed at the mills. It's the eggs that cause what people complain about at home, and freezing isn't worth squat to solve that.

 

[NCalHippie]

Some good advice here from IAZ and I have never understood why some people advice to use food grade buckets if they are are using mylar bags inside of them.

 

[MikeK]

Some good advice here from IAZ and I have never understood why some people advice to use food grade buckets if they are are using mylar bags inside of them.

For me, it's mostly a matter of having food grade buckets on hand after the SHTF. To make fermented veggies (kraut, pickles, kimchee, etc.) in, to store home dried garden produce or brined meats, for transporting and storing drinking water and so much more. Since they're available and not priced out of range, it really doesn't make sense not to use them.

 

[Illini Warrior]

if freezing killed off the insect larva the entire northern hemisphere would be bug free and this entire myth would be a muted discussion ...

if you don't bring your frozen food back up to room temp and do something about the possible infused humidity >> you're doing more harm than any good involved ....

just use 02 absorbers like you should be doing and you won't have any problem ...

 

[MikeK]

if freezing killed off the insect larva the entire northern hemisphere would be bug free and this entire myth would be a muted discussion ...

if you don't bring your frozen food back up to room temp and do something about the possible infused humidity >> you're doing more harm than any good involved ....

just use 02 absorbers like you should be doing and you won't have any problem ...

We had someone right here in this section post a few months ago about thawing frozen grain and it being wet with condensation.

I'll never understand why people try to layer things. Freezing, then adding O2 absorber, then vacuum sealing, then, then...

I can't count the number of ideas I've seen here that "seem like they should work" but don't, because they overlooked some small but critical detail. It's easier and smarter to just pack foods like the long term food storage companies that have been in business for decades are doing it. They either use mylar or a metal can, and an O2 absorber. Nothing else because nothing else is needed and they have decades worth of lab tests to prove it.

 

[IamZeke]

I'll never understand why people try to layer things. Freezing, then adding O2 absorber, then vacuum sealing, then, then...

It's nervous redundancy brought on by lack of confidence in a process. At the root is ignorance and the associated concern over that.

But the result isn't redundancy. The result is complication and distraction instead. Those only create more opportunities to fail.

 

[GrizzlyetteAdams]

I have never had a bug problem in over two decades since I have been lightly dusting my dry goods (beans, grains, etc.) with food-grade diatomaceous earth, which is rinsed off before cooking.

Anything that hatches in a DE treated environment soon dies from dehydration. (DE is finely powdered microscopic diatom shells, which mechanically causes "death by a thousand cuts" to the insect).

Any boxed groceries that I bring into the house is immediately stashed in a plastic bag with DE sprinkled in it. Moth and weevil eggs that sometimes ride home on boxed groceries never have a chance at life beyond a couple of days. Until then, they are too debilitated to do any damage. That extra minute of care has 100% prevented any possible weevil and moth problems in my food pantry.