How to Store - Part I

We have discussed how to begin with the purchase of certain bulk items such as flour, sugar, baking powder/soda, salt and yeast.  The whole idea here is to buy these items in bulk - 50 pounds of flour, 50 lbs of sugar, salt, baking powder/soda, & yeast.  Okay, so I'm encouraging you to buy 50 lbs of certain items, but let's face it, 50 lb bags don't fit very well in the pantry.  Even if you have room in your pantry for them, a 50 lb bag of flour, grain, or sugar would advertise to certain critters (ants, weevils, roaches, & pantry moths) that you would probably not wish to attract.

The best way to store bulk items is in food grade buckets with tight-fitting, rubber gasketed lids.  The size of the bucket will depend on the the quantity you are storing which is directly related to the size of your crew.  As an example,
        A 5 or 6 gallon bucket each of flour and sugar
        A 3 gallon bucket of salt
        A 5 lb container of baking powder and/or soda
        A 2 lb package of yeast

Food grade buckets come in all sizes from 1 gallon to 7 gallons.  A 50 lb bag of flour or sugar will fit nicely in a 6 gallon bucket and you may have a little to spare.  If you are storing 50 lbs of salt it fits well in a 5 gallon bucket.  Now don't panic about storing 50 lbs of salt.  If salt is kept dry it will last a VERY, VERY long time.  You can go by the Biblical standard - if salt has lost its savour(saltiness) . . . it is good for nothing - except maybe a scrubbing agent.  I have personally used the same bucket of salt for years!

Now whether you are a coupon clipper or a store hopper, you know that in order to find the deals sometimes you have to do your research.  The same is true for buying in bulk.  There are places where you can buy your bulk items already in buckets and sometimes it is less expensive to buy them in bags and bucket them yourself.  For years I bought my whole grains, rice, etc. in pre-sealed buckets.  These buckets were sealed for long term storage (we will discuss this in detail in Part II).  So over the years as I have used the grain, etc., I have emptied many a bucket.  I never throw them away!  Needless to say I have accumulated many buckets.  Very often you can find used food grade buckets from a restaurant or bakery.  These are good for buckets that are "in use", but probably not so great for long term storage (again more on this later).  But you also have to keep in mind that sometimes by the time you have purchased the grains in bags and new buckets and add to that shipping costs, you would have been better off to have purchased them from someone already bucketed.  For me, it is cheaper to refill my used buckets than to purchase more.

 In Part II, we will discuss short term storage (what I call being "in use") vs. long term storage and introduce the Gamma lid. 

Coming soon - an extensive resource list!   Suppliers of bulk foods, bucketed items, co-op opportunities, gamma lids, and more!!!